John Laing Environmental adds two anaerobic digestion plants – John Laing Environmental Assets has announced the acquisition of two anaerobic digestion (AD) assets, Egmere Energy Limited and Grange Farm Energy Limited, for a total consideration of c.GBP36 million.
The Egmere Energy AD plant is located in Egmere, North Norfolk and was commissioned in November 2014. The plant has a thermal capacity of c.5MW and predominantly produces biomethane to be injected to the national gas grid. In addition, the plant also has a 0.5MW CHP engine and is accredited under the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) and Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) schemes. The Grange Farm Energy AD plant is located in Spridlington, Lincolnshire and was commissioned in December 2014. The plant has a thermal capacity of c.5MW and predominantly produces biomethane to be injected to the national gas grid. In addition, the plant also has a 0.5MW CHP engine and is accredited under the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) and Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) schemes. The AD plants have been acquired from venture capital funds managed by Downing LLP, EIS funds managed by Amersham Investment Management Ltd and minority shareholders. Future Biogas Limited will continue to provide management, operations and maintenance services to the AD plants after the acquisition.
The acquisitions build on JLEN’s growing portfolio of AD projects and bring the total capacity of the renewable energy assets in the JLEN investment portfolio to 269.2MW.
The acquisition was funded by a draw-down under the company’s revolving credit facility. Richard Morse, the JLEN chairman, said “We are pleased with JLEN’s continued investment in the anaerobic digestion sector and look forward to working with our partner, Future Biogas, to continue the strong performance of these assets.”
[QD comment: JLEN has flagged its ambitions in this area and we wrote a note that explains how AD plants work and their economics.]
JLEN : John Laing Environmental adds two anaerobic digestion plants