GIB invests 7.5m in London AD plant

The Green Investment Bank is to provide 7.5 million funding towards a proposed anaerobic digestion (AD) and green waste composting facility in North London, it announced yesterday (May 14).

The investment in the 15 million organics recycling facility is being made through one of the GIBs fund managers, Foresight.

Developer D Williams & Co Limited will be constructing the project on their own land at Cattlegate Farm. They currently run the 2,000 acre agricultural farm in Enfield which produces herbs as well as traditional arable operations.

Processing around 30,000 tonnes of food waste from hotels, restaurants, retailers and local food manufacturers each year, the AD plant will produce 7,400MWh of electricity enough to power 1,750 homes.

In addition, digestate produced through the AD process for local farmland is expected to save farmers more than 120,000 a year.

The adjacent composting plant, meanwhile, will process garden waste from local authorities across London and the northern home counties.

Overall, GIB claims the facility will save 21,000 tonnes of carbon per year the equivalent to taking 9,500 cars off the roads.

Construction is expected to begin in June 2014 and the plant is expected to be operational by Spring 2016. The project will create six full time, permanent jobs to support the on-going maintenance and operation of the plant.

Momentum

Shaun Kingsbury, chief executive, UK Green Investment Bank, said: Todays announcement provides another demonstration of the attractiveness of anaerobic digestion infrastructure as an investment opportunity. The announcement of this new project follows the opening, last month, of London’s first commercial-scale anaerobic digestion and composting facility [TEGs Dagenham plant] which is now producing renewable energy and generating returns for its investors. We are seeing real momentum in the commercial deployment of this technology which, I hope, will see further growth in the year ahead.

I congratulate Foresight on securing the investment to construct this new facility, which will not only save thousands of tonnes of waste from landfill, but also generate a revenue stream from a resource that would have otherwise been thrown away.

The investment is being made via GIB’s Foresight-managed fund, UK Waste Resources and Energy Investments (UKWREI), which is investing 7.5m alongside the Foresight Environmental Fund (FEF) on the same terms as UKWREI. FEF is cornerstoned by the European Investment Bank and the London Waste and Recycling Board (LWARB) through the London Green Fund (LGF) alongside several institutional and private investors.

Commenting on the plans, Business Secretary, Vince Cable, said: The UK has the potential to become a world leader in this kind of technology and the Green Investment Bank is playing its part.

This new plant will mean less of our waste going to landfill, less reliance on fossil fuels for energy generation and provides compost for the farmers whose land it is built on. Through our industrial strategy we are working in partnership with business to give companies the confidence to invest, securing green jobs and a stronger economy.