Biomass News

A UK wood recycler has been fined £15,000 (€17,500) after investigators found it was storing nearly four times as much waste as permitted by law. The Environment Agency estimated that the firm, Red Jon, held 1,790 tonnes of wood at its site in Oxfordshire, whereas it was only permitted to store 500 tonnes in one place over a seven-day period. The piles of wood posed a ‘significant…
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Spanish renewable energy company Energia & Celulosa (Ence) has opened its new 50MW biomass plant in La Mancha, central Spain. The new facility will produce an estimated 325,000 MWh per year, providing power for around 60,000 people, and consume around 238,000 tonnes of biomass formed of pomace, vine shoots, olive leaf, woody biomass and agricultural waste. The biomass used will comply with…
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A UK wood recycling trade body is making an urgent appeal to demolition companies to take part in a wood waste sampling programme. The Wood Recyclers’ Association (WRA) is seeking waste wood samples from the demolition of buildings built before 2007 in a bid to avert a ‘potential crisis’ that could cost the demolition sector more than £100 million (€117 million) per year. The WRA…
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Household waste, farm waste and wood waste will be used as feedstock in four new UK biofuels plants thanks to government funding. A statement released by the Department for Transport said that between 2018 and 2032, low carbon fuels are expected to save nearly 85 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2), equivalent to taking nearly 18 million cars off the road. Two of the projects announced on…
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EQTEC, a technology solutions company for waste gasification-to-energy projects, has announced its North Fork biomass project has reached financial close. The legal documentation for the proposed construction and operation of a 2MW biomass plant by North Fork Community Power was finalised and signed on 31 December 2019. The biomass project was previously delayed in early November following a…
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Asset management and investment specialist Tikehau Capital has acquired Acek Energias Renovables’ biomass business. The agreement is valued at €81 million and represents the company’s first private equity investment in Spain. Acek Energias Renovables established its biomass business in 2009, focusing on the engineering, construction, operation and maintenance of biomass plants as well as…
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2019 was the ‘cleanest year on record’ for the UK as the amount of zero-carbon power outstripped that sourced from fossil fuels for a full 12 months, according to the National Grid. In a statement, the organisation said the historic milestone comes as the UK enters the mid-point between 1990 and 2050 – the year in which the UK has pledged to achieve a 100% reduction in emissions, based…
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Pinnacle Renewable Energy, one of the world’s largest producers of wood pellets, has announced plans to construct a new industrial wood pellet facility in the US. The new production facility in the southeast US, close to Pinnacle’s Aliceville, Alabama plant, will produce 360,000 metric tonnes per annum (MTPA) and is expected to cost around $99 million (€89 million) to build. Wood pellets…
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The Indian government is planning to set up more than 100 biogas plants in a bid to tackle the issue of crop stubble burning. Every winter thousands of farmers burn leftover crop stubble, sending vast plumes of smoke into the sky and polluting neighbouring communities. Farmers have long burned crop stubble to prepare the land for new planting in October and November, due to a lack of…
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One of Papua New Guinea’s largest companies and investors, Oil Search, has teamed up with Swedish energy, industry and infrastructure design and consulting company AFRY and the Climate Change and Development Authority of Papua New Guinea for a new project combining biomass and solar power. The PNG Biomass project is an integrated renewable energy project combining a 30MW biomass plant and a…
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Pinnacle Renewable Energy, one of the world’s largest producers of wood pellets, has entered into a three-year fibre supply agreement with Alkali Resource Management (ARM). Under the agreement, ARM will process, store and deliver biomass from harvest residuals to Pinnacle for use at its Williams Lake facility in British Columbia, Canada. ARM, a forest management company, is owned by the…
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The Renewable Energy Association has branded comments made by a report criticising the sustainability of biomass as “disingenuous”. Climate thinktank Sandbag has claimed that biomass “risks accelerating climate change”, and that heavily subsidised plans to cut carbon emissions will result in a “staggering” amount of tree cutting. Sandbag’s report found that Europe 10 largest…
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Environmental infrastructure funding company JLEN has acquired a 70% equity stake in anaerobic digestion and waste collection firm Bio Collectors Holdings (BCH). Through its subsidiary companies, BCH holds the rights and operational assets that make up its anaerobic digestion (AD) plant and its Bio Collectors waste collection business. BCH is based in Merton, south London. Its AD plant was…
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Biorefining start-up Chrysalix Technologies has won significant funding from the EU to scale-up its business. The company uses waste wood and agricultural by-products as well as sustainably-grown biomass to produce biofuels, biomaterials, greener chemicals and bioplastics. Its BioFlex process separates the various naturally-occurring components of wood – lignin, cellulose and hemicelluloses…
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