Beneath the surface of every active landfill in America, a chemical reaction is underway. Bacteria break down organic matter — food scraps, paper, yard waste — and produce a gas that is roughly half methane and half carbon dioxide. This landfill gas, or LFG, rises through the waste mass and, in most cases, vents into the atmosphere or is burned off in open flares. That methane is at least 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas over a 100-year period, according to the EPA. We are, in essence, manufacturing one of the most powerful warming agents on the planet and then throwing it away.
But there is another path. Landfill gas can be captured, cleaned, and burned to generate electricity. And when that electricity feeds a microgrid — a localized energy network capable of operating independently from the main power grid — something remarkable happens. Waste becomes watts. A liability becomes an asset. And communities gain a source of resilient, renewable power that doesn't depend on sunshine, wind, or imported fuel.
The Scale of the Opportunity
The EPA's Landfill Methane Outreach Program tracks landfill gas energy projects across the country. As of late 2024, there were 542 operational LFG energy projects at 488 municipal solid waste landfills nationwide. Approximately 63 percent of those projects generate electricity. The EPA has identified an additional 444 "candidate" landfills that could cost-effectively implement methane-to-energy systems but have not yet done so.
The numbers have been moving in the right direction. By mid-2025, the United States had 589 operational landfill biogas facilities — an 18.5 percent increase since 2020. Over 90 new facilities were commissioned in just five years, boosting beneficial biogas capture capacity to 521 billion cubic feet annually. That is enough energy to meet the electricity needs of 3.3 million homes or fuel 5.2 million passenger vehicles per year. Capital investment in new landfill gas facilities exceeded $1 billion in both 2023 and 2024.
But here is the tension: the majority of those new projects are focused on producing renewable natural gas, or RNG, for pipeline injection or vehicle fuel. Electricity generation, while still the dominant use of captured landfill gas — roughly 60 percent of all biogas, powering about two million households annually — is losing ground in new project development. Of the 92 new facilities that opened between 2020 and 2025, 77 of them, or 84 percent, were RNG projects.
RNG has its place. But the rush toward pipeline-quality gas risks overlooking a more transformative application: using landfill gas to anchor microgrids that deliver resilient, local power to the communities that need it most.
What a Landfill-Gas Microgrid Actually Looks Like
The most complete example in the United States sits on a Marine Corps air station. Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, in San Diego, began drawing methane from the adjacent West Miramar Landfill in 2012. Today, landfill gas provides 4.8 megawatts of renewable electricity to the installation — enough to supply roughly 75 percent of the base's energy demand. That power arrives via a 6.5-mile dedicated power line connecting the landfill directly to the base.
But Miramar's system is not just a generator hooked up to a gas pipe. It is a full microgrid: the landfill gas electricity is paired with 1.3 megawatts of solar photovoltaics, battery energy storage systems totaling several megawatts, and a backup diesel and natural gas power plant rated at 6.45 megawatts. The entire system can operate independently of the San Diego Gas & Electric grid for up to 21 days, powering over 100 mission-critical facilities, including flight line operations.
The microgrid has produced over $90 million in energy savings since its installation. During California's rolling blackouts and heat waves, Miramar has not only kept its own lights on — it has helped prevent outages in the surrounding community by reducing strain on the regional grid.
This is what infrastructure resilience looks like in practice. Not a backup generator in a closet. A fully integrated energy system that runs on waste.
Why Microgrids Matter More Than Megawatts
The conventional model for landfill gas electricity is straightforward: capture the gas, run it through an internal combustion engine or turbine, and sell the power to the utility grid. It works. It generates revenue. But it also means that the electricity produced at a local landfill may travel hundreds of miles on transmission lines before reaching any consumer — and if the grid goes down, that local generation goes dark too.
Microgrids change the equation. By keeping generation and consumption close together, a landfill-gas microgrid provides several advantages that grid-connected generation alone cannot match.
Resilience during grid failures. When hurricanes, ice storms, or heat waves knock out regional power, a microgrid can "island" — disconnect from the main grid and continue operating on its own. For hospitals, water treatment plants, emergency shelters, and communications towers, this capability is not a luxury. It is a necessity. Communities in the rural South, where both landfills and severe weather are common, stand to benefit enormously.
Baseload reliability. Unlike solar and wind, landfill gas is produced continuously, day and night, regardless of weather. A well-managed landfill produces methane for 20 to 30 years after closure. This makes LFG an ideal baseload component in a microgrid — the steady generation source that solar and battery storage complement rather than replace.
Reduced transmission losses. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that roughly 5 percent of electricity generated in the United States is lost during transmission and distribution. Local generation eliminates most of that waste.
Economic development. LFG energy projects create jobs in design, construction, and ongoing operations. When paired with a microgrid serving a local industrial park or municipal campus, the economic benefits stay in the community rather than flowing to a distant utility.
The Obstacles Are Real
We would be doing our readers a disservice if we painted this as simple. Landfill gas is not clean natural gas. It is a complex and variable fuel, and using it reliably requires overcoming genuine engineering challenges.
The most persistent technical problem is siloxanes. These silicon-based compounds enter landfills through discarded cosmetics, cleaning products, personal care items, and industrial lubricants. When landfill gas containing siloxanes is combusted in an engine or turbine, the silicon converts to crystalline silica — an abrasive, glass-like deposit that coats spark plugs, valves, pistons, and turbocharger components. The result is reduced combustion efficiency, increased emissions, shortened equipment life, and expensive unscheduled maintenance. Siloxane contamination can void manufacturer warranties and has forced the shutdown of otherwise viable projects.
Gas composition variability is another challenge. Methane content can fluctuate significantly depending on waste composition, moisture levels, temperature, and the age of the landfill. Air infiltration into gas collection wells introduces oxygen and nitrogen, which reduce the energy content of the gas and can create explosive mixtures. Hydrogen sulfide, another common contaminant, corrodes equipment and poses health risks to workers.
Typical annual operation and maintenance costs for LFG collection systems run approximately $180,000, or about $4,500 per acre. For electricity generation using internal combustion engines, annual maintenance costs range from $180 to $210 per kilowatt of capacity. These are real costs that must be weighed against revenue, and they are part of the reason many developers have shifted toward RNG — which commands higher prices per unit of energy through federal renewable fuel credits.
None of these challenges are insurmountable. Gas treatment technologies have improved significantly. Activated carbon and silica gel filtration can reduce siloxane levels to safe concentrations. Modern engine management systems can adjust to variable gas quality in real time. But the solutions cost money and require expertise, which means smaller landfills and rural communities often lack the resources to implement them without outside support.
The Policy Gap
Federal policy has done a great deal to support landfill gas as a fuel. The Renewable Fuel Standard provides credits for RNG used as transportation fuel, and those credits have driven the recent boom in RNG projects. But federal incentives for landfill-gas electricity generation — particularly for microgrid applications — remain comparatively thin.
State-level renewable portfolio standards sometimes include landfill gas as a qualifying resource, but not always. And microgrid development faces its own regulatory obstacles: interconnection agreements with utilities can be contentious, standby charges can undermine the economics, and permitting for islanding capability — the very feature that makes microgrids resilient — can be slow and uncertain.
The result is a policy landscape that incentivizes turning landfill gas into pipeline fuel shipped elsewhere over generating local electricity for the communities that host the landfill. That is a misalignment worth correcting.
Where We Go from Here
At the EPR Foundation, we believe that the best infrastructure serves the community where it sits. Landfills are, by definition, local. The gas they produce is local. The environmental burden they impose — odor, truck traffic, groundwater risk — is borne locally. It follows that the energy benefit should be local, too.
Landfill-gas microgrids will not solve the climate crisis on their own. They will not replace utility-scale solar or wind. But they occupy a niche that almost nothing else can fill: reliable, weather-independent, locally sourced renewable power that turns an environmental liability into community infrastructure.
The 444 candidate landfills the EPA has identified represent real megawatts waiting to be harvested. Many of them sit in rural and semi-rural communities — places where grid reliability is already fragile and where economic development opportunities are scarce. A microgrid anchored by landfill gas, supplemented by solar and storage, could power a municipal water system, a regional hospital, or an industrial park. It could keep the lights on during the next hurricane. It could generate revenue for a county government instead of a distant utility.
The gas is already being produced. The technology exists. The question is whether we have the will — and the policy framework — to put the two together.
The EPR Foundation advocates for smart, community-centered infrastructure that turns environmental challenges into local assets. Landfill-gas microgrids are not a silver bullet, but they are a practical, proven tool that deserves far more attention than it currently receives.