Other News

SGB, an agricultural biotechnology and seed company, has successfully created a hybrid jatropha which has both high yield and rapid time to maturity. In conjunction with these results, the company has closed an $11 million (€8.5 million) Series C financing to drive commercial rollout. With its latest generation of jatropha hybrids, SGB has reduced the time to maturity from five years to one…
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Drax Biomass, a development and operating company focused on manufacturing wood pellets from biomass, is moving its US headquarters to Atlanta, Georgia. The news was announced by the Georgia Department of Economic Development (GDEcD), who also said the move will create 50 jobs in the Sandy Springs area over the next five years. Drax Biomass is said to be investing over $1 million (€700,000)…
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Bluesphere, a clean energy company that develops, manages and owns waste-to-energy projects, has received a term sheet from private equity fund manager Energy Power Partners (EPP). The term sheet includes full equity financing of over $15 million (€ million) for its 3.2MW biogas project in Johnston, Rhode Island. The facility will generate electricity from biogas derived from organic…
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Forest Fuels, a UK wood fuel supply company, says it is among the first UK biomass fuel suppliers to be included as an approved supplier on the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) Biomass Suppliers List (BSL) for both woodchips and wood pellets. Buying fuel from a BSL approved supplier satisfies some of the new requirements which boiler owners need to meet in order to claim Renewable…
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Cobalt Technologies, a producer of bio n-butanol as a renewable fuel and chemical, has signed a global cooperation and supply agreement with Andritz to integrate its lignocellulosic pre-treatment process for the production of n-butanol with Andritz's customized pre-treatment systems. The primary alcohol, n-butanol is a widely used industrial chemical found in paints, lacquers and other surface…
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A unit of energy company First Energy Service is building a wood-fired biomass plant to be located in Oita Prefecture, Japan. Sumitomo Mitsui Banking and partners will provide a 6.3 billion yen (€45 million) loan for the 18MW plant, Bloomberg reports, which was signed by a group of banks including the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ and Mizuho Bank. In addition, Sumitomo is also supplying a 2.2…
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Canada-based forestry company TimberWest Forest is planning a $60 million (€44 million) wood pellet production plant in Vancouver Island Nanaimo, British Columbia. Ground could break on the plant as early as Q4 this year, with operations due to commence within a year. When production begins, the facility will manufacture 200,000 tonnes of wood pellets annually, produced from leftover fibre…
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React Energy, an infrastructure developer and operator which focuses on the production of clean energy in the UK, has released an operational update, in which it announced the issuance of a £1.5 million (€1.9 million) secured loan note (SLN). The SLN is intended to fund the ongoing development of the group through organic and acquisitive growth. React is currently developing a number…
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The UK government has announced its intention to bring private capital into the UK Green Investment Bank (GIB). Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne comments: 'In 2012 we set up the Green Investment Bank to support important investment in the UK's green infrastructure and since then it's gone from strength to strength. That is why we can now begin exploring options for moving the bank into…
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In the Philippines, First Quenzon Biogas – a consortium of local poultry owners – is developing a 6MW peak load biogas plant. The plant will be delivered by Envitec Biogas, the first contract to be signed by the company in the Philippines. The plant is expected to deliver over 24 million kWh of renewable energy once construction has finished. The project will make use of the 22,000…
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The European Investment Bank (EIB) has announced that a €150 million framework million loan will be made available to Banco Santander Chile for financing projects contributing to climate change mitigation, especially large and medium-scale renewable energy schemes. These projects include biomass, wind, solar photovoltaic and concentrated solar power, in addition to transmission lines for…
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General Electric (GE) is to acquire Monsal, an anaerobic digestion and biogas company based in the UK. In a statement, GE says the move will enable it to 'help municipalities and industrial manufacturers shift from disposing wastewater treatment by-products to generating renewable energy and other value from their streams'. 'For many years, GE has been working to further the development of water…
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The German parliament approved an amended Renewable Energy Act (EEG) on27 June. According to the new EEG, biogas production in Germany will be capped from 1 August to 100MW a year and Feed-in Tariffs will be gradually withdrawn from all new plants above 100kW. The European Biogas Association (EBA) has criticised this decision, which it calls a 'U-turn in German biogas policies', claiming it 'will…
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In the Philippines, Greenergy Holdings has sold its 60% share in Biomass Holdings. Biomass Holdings, the venture of Greenergy and investment holding firm Cleantech Projektgesellschaft, last year started building an 18MW sugarcane bagasse-fired renewable energy plant. This project, which is being constructed adjacent to the existing San Carlos ethanol plant, is slated for completion by the end of…
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