Blue Sphere to build 3.2MW biogas plant in Rhode Island

Blue Sphere, a clean energy company that develops, manages and owns waste-to-energy projects, has closed a joint venture with an affiliate of York Capital Management to develop, construct and operate a 3.2MW biogas generation facility in Johnston, Rhode Island under the management of Entropy Investment Management.

Under the terms of the JV, Blue Sphere owns 22.75% of the project and received an initial payment of $1,481,900 (€1,381,062) in cash at the closing. Two payments of $562,500 each are expected to be paid later this year upon the project achieving mechanical completion and commercial operation milestones.

Blue Sphere CEO Shlomi Palas noted that this is the second closing for the company in 2015, stating: 'We closed on a joint venture to develop a second significant food waste to energy facility in the US, which, under the current construction timeline for the project, is anticipated to commence production and sale of electricity during the fourth quarter of 2015.'

Orbit Energy, based in North Carolina, co-developed the project. Blue Sphere has made arrangements for the inclusion of two of Orbit's high solid anaerobic digester units to work in parallel with the digesters of Austep S.p.A., the project's EPC contractor, subject to the fulfilment of certain conditions.