US-headed Blue Sphere Corporation (BLSP), a clean-tech independent power producer (IPP) that develops, owns and manages waste-to-energy facilities and other clean energy technologies globally, has announced that the company’s recently acquired Futuris Papi S.p.A. 1 MWe cogeneration plant in Udine, Italy has met important and key milestones.
According to a statement, the Udine facility, which runs on vegetable and plants based oils, was operating at approximately 20 percent of capacity when Blue Sphere completed the acquisition in September 2017.
The company has been working to improve the output of the facility and says that as of October 2017, the plant was operating at approximately 90 percent of capacity and by the end of November 2017 the plant is expected to be operating at approximately 95 percent of capacity.
Blue Sphere is also reporting that it has hired ED&F Man as its commodities broker to assure the feedstock needs for the Udine facility are managed at the highest level. Established in 1783, ED&F Man is an employee-owned agricultural commodities merchant with 7 000 employees operating in 60 countries.
ED&F Man trades sugar, coffee, molasses, animal feed, grains, fats, oils and pulses and assists its clients to manage price risk through hedging and providing access to commodity and capital markets through its financial brokerage business.
The Udine facility has a power purchase agreement (PPA) in place with Gestore del Servizi Energetici, S.p.A (GSE) through December 2027. GSE is a state-owned company that promotes and supports renewable energy sources in Italy, through power purchase agreements. The company expects the annual EBITDA for the Udine plant to be approximately EUR 1 million (≈ US$1.6 million).
We are very excited to have brought our Udine cogeneration facility to nearly full capacity. This is an excellent example of our acquisition strategy of purchasing distressed assets. We identify operating deficiencies, address the deficient issues and manage the assets to achieve their true potential. This has always been a key strategy within our plans and we are working to add many new projects to our portfolio of waste-to-energy and clean-technology facilities, commented Shlomi Palas, CEO of Blue Sphere.
