Biomass boost from Royal Bank of Scotland
The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is considering investing around £400 million (€467.8 million) into biomass projects throughout 2013.
It is believed the bank is working on five deals which would support facilities which use feedstock like wood chips to generate heat and power.
Each plant would be built from scratch and have a capacity of between 50MW and 150MW. This move towards biomass differs from last year’s strategy which saw RBS invest most of its lending in solar and wind projects.
‘Biomass will occupy quite a lot of our time and effort this year,’ head of energy at RBS Andrew Buglass was quoted as saying. ‘It can make a material contribution to the generation mix. Financing for the larger biomass projects is likely to be finalized towards the end of the year.’
RBS has invested in biomass facilities before and worked with the likes of Helius Energy and Kedco over the past 12 months.