In the UK, specialist bioenergy infrastructure fund manager Iona Capital Ltd (Iona) has acquired Dryholme Biogas, a 1.8 MWe anaerobic digestion plant located near Silloth, Cumbria. The plant is accredited under the Government’s Feed-in Tariff (FIT) scheme and has been processing by-products from a local dairy alongside agricultural feedstocks.
According to a statement, Iona intend to implement a new programme of refurbishment works at the plant in order to improve operational performance and increase the electricity exported to the local grid.
In addition, a new long term feedstock plan, under the direction of Waverley Farms, has also been introduced in conjunction with a local farmer. This will ensure that the plant has sufficient feedstock to achieve full output capacity.
The plant is to be operated by Advantage Biogas, the AD specialist, under a long term contract with performance incentives. Advantage will take on two of the existing plant operators and provide additional management resources including maintenance and biological support.
We identified Dryholme as a good long term asset in need of some remedial work to bring it up to its full potential. We were grateful to the Farmgen team for their support in the transaction progress which took much longer than anticipated mainly due to the grant of an amended planning permission, said Nick Ross, Director of Iona Capital
