JLEN buys Codford Biogas – JLEN Environmental Assets is buying an electrical exporting food waste anaerobic digestion plant. The deal involved the purchase of a 100% equity stake in Codford Biogas Limited. This is the holding company for the Codford anaerobic digestion plant in Wiltshire. The plant is permitted to process 100,000 tonnes of food waste each year.
The price is £19.8m upfront plus a smaller additional amount in deferred consideration (this relates to a number of expansion opportunities).
The Codford AD plant has been operational since 2014. The plant has a current electrical capacity of 3.8MWe which is generated by processing up to 100,000 tonnes per annum of both liquid and solid food waste from the commercial and industrial sector. This segment of the food waste market has proved resilient during the last 12 months. As a result of its electricity generation, the plant is able to supply up to 4,000 homes via the UK power grid. In addition to the core electricity export, the plant is accredited under the Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) and the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) schemes.
The plant also supplies about 80,000 tonnes per annum of nutrient rich, digestate biofertilizer (to a standard known as PAS110) to surrounding farms. This helps them reduce their use of carbon-intensive synthetic fertilisers by 70-80%.
This is JLEN’s second food waste fuelled anaerobic digestion deal. The total capacity of renewable energy assets in the JLEN investment portfolio is now 308.5MW. The acquisition is being funded by a draw-down on JLEN’s revolving credit facility.