The £160 million plant has a capacity of 250,000 tonnes a year. It will add to Greencoat’s biomass portfolio which also includes the wood-powered Templeborough facility in Rotherham and the straw-powered Sleaford Renewable Energy Plant in Lincolnshire.
Greencoat Capital is majority-owned by British multinational asset firm Schroders, which completed the acquisition of a 75% stake in Greencoat earlier this month. The move for Margam appears to mark a significant step by Schroders entrance within the bioenergy sector.
The Margam Green biomass plant was originally acquired by Glennmont in 2015 during the construction phase and has been operational since 2019. Originally, the Margam project was a joint venture between Cardiff-based energy development company, Eco2 Limited and local company Western Logs Group.
The facility processes Grade-C waste wood sourced from local authorities, civic amenity sites and commercial and industrial sources.
Around 50,000 tonnes per year is supplied by Dorset-based Eco Sustainable Solutions, as part of a deal signed in 2019 (see letsrecycle.com story).
‘Step closer’
CEO and co-founder at Glennmont, Joost Bergsma said: “We are delighted to complete the sale of Margam to Greencoat, which represents a long-term investment in Welsh renewable energy infrastructure. We were pleased to work with Greencoat again following their purchase of the Sleaford plant in 2020.”
Wind
In March 2021, Glennmont was acquired by Nuveen, a global asset manager. Glennmont said at the time this will “better enable Glennmont to drive its plans to raise further clean energy funds, and to target new investments in all major technologies – offshore wind, onshore wind and solar PV”.
For the sale of Margam Green, Evercore and Orrick acted as financial and legal advisors respectively. The technical advisors were Fichtner and KPMG and EY provided tax and accounting advice on the transaction.
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