Ireland-headed waste gasification to energy technology provider EQTEC plc has announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Eqtec Iberia SLU, has signed a Collaboration Framework Agreement with compatriot Carbon Sole Group Ltd (Carbon Sole), an Irish based group focused on the provision of green energy solutions to the Irish market.
Carbon Sole is a bioenergy park development and asset management company that designs, structures, and delivers green energy projects, with a focus on decarbonizing regional gateway towns while supporting growth in employment and investment.
Carbon Sole’s focus is on “Green Energy Biopark” projects that optimize land use, and utilize biomass more efficiently for green electricity, advanced biofuels, district heating, and energy storage delivering fossil fuel energy independence, sustainability, and growth to the towns and regions, in line with Irish Government policy and European Directives.
Ireland is a very interesting market for us, offering numerous opportunities, particularly given its unique characteristic of being now the only EU state in the islands of the North Atlantic. It is also the location of our corporate headquarters and we intend to be a significant player in the decarbonisation process of its industries, said David Palumbo, CEO of EQTEC.
Under the Agreement, EQTEC has agreed with Carbon Sole to jointly participate in projects in Ireland involving biogas and district heating, waste-to-energy (WtE), and other energy infrastructure projects using EQTEC’s Gasifier Technology (EGT).
The duo will seek to develop a portfolio of projects together, utilizing EQTEC’s EGT Technology, and will co-operate to source the necessary equity and debt financing for projects in the pipeline, including project acquisition costs.
EQTEC advanced technologies will be key to enabling Carbon Sole to utilise locally-sourced forestry and agri-waste materials, to deliver a mix of green energy products to meet the various energy demands of each town in electricity, heating and transport, securing future sustainable growth, employment and low carbon economic development, said Sean Daly, Director of Carbon Sole.
Three planned Green Energy Bioparks
Carbon Sole considers EQTEC as the exclusive gasification technology supplier and co-developer to three planned Green Energy Parks utilizing advanced biofuels, energy storage, and district heating networks, located in Ireland.
The first two proposed sites are already zoned for enterprise/industrial and are suitable for heat and electricity generation using biomass fuels, and 25 MWe grid connection contract offers have previously been secured for each site and these will be resubmitted.
The proposed plants will be designed to handle forestry and agri-waste in line with biofuels obligation schemes and certification requirements. Fuel will be sourced locally from an under-utilized forest waste biomass supply. Carbon Sole will be responsible for obtaining the permits, licenses and authorizations, power purchase agreements, and feedstock agreements for the projects which are anticipated to be in place by Q1/2021.
Carbon Sole Group are delighted to announce our partnership with EQTEC focused on the development of our projects in Ireland, starting with the regional gateway towns of Shannon and Sligo, to the North and Mid-West of Ireland, which are strategically important to the development of Industry clusters, employment and living, Sean Daly said.
Designs for the three initially identified bioenergy park projects, are in the process of being updated to utilize EQTEC’s technology solutions.
The updated EQTEC designs are to be submitted and intended to qualify for Irish Renewable Electricity Supports, Advanced Biofuels Obligations, Renewable Heat, and other green Climate Action energy support schemes which, if secured, would be expected to facilitate increased investment into a number of project opportunities.
Developing partnerships with high quality and established stakeholders in our target markets has been a key focus of EQTEC since I joined the company. We are particularly excited about this collaboration agreement with Carbon Sole as we rarely find a developer with such a great understanding of the sector matched with a thorough understanding of the energy needs of the towns and available resources in which the projects are to be vested, ended David Palumbo.