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Innovative technology of decentralised biogas plants for
efficient operation in the agriculture and food
industry
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EUR six million financing provided jointly by financial
investor Gimv and other partners
- First new investment within the framework of the strategic partnership between RWE Innogy and CEE, a subsidiary of Bankhaus Lampe
Yesterday, Innogy Venture Capital together with European
financial investor Gimv and other partners placed in Brussels
their signatures on an agreement to invest in the Belgian
company GreenWatt S. A. GreenWatt designs, operates and
builds turnkey biogas plants for the decentralised generation
of renewable heat and power from biodegradable high water
content wastes without depending on the addition of slurry.
This technology is therefore particularly suitable for the
energy recovery from organic wastes and residues from
agriculture and the food industry directly at the site of
their origin. In total a financing round of EUR six million
is planned to finance GreenWatt's international growth.
This is the first new investment by Innogy Venture Capital's
fund IRTF I since RWE Innogy and Bankhaus Lampe signed their
strategic cooperation agreement last November.
Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt, CEO RWE Innogy, explains: "The
distributed renewable production of energy will become
increasingly important with the restructuring of the energy
supply - therefore we have decided to support GreenWatt. This
innovative biogas technology has already been successfully
adopted by several customers and, with the additional benefit
of avoiding waste disposal costs, these plants are an
economically attractive alternative for the agriculture and
food industries."
"From our point of view there is a great international market
for biogas plants of this size," added Detlef Schreiber, CEO
of the cooperating company CEE (Conetwork Erneuerbare
Energien Holding GmbH & Co. KgaA, Hamburg). "Against the
background of rising energy and heat costs the use of self
generated energy will become a more and more important factor
in the future. We are confident that our investment in
GreenWatt will open us good return prospects in this section
of technology development."
The innovative solution developed by GreenWatt involves
multi-stage digestion in the absence of oxygen, a process
which stands out for its robustness, process stability, yield
and flexibility of suitable waste materials. In particular,
the plants provide the conditions for a flexible digestion of
organic waste materials without the addition of animal manure
and using an especially high water content substrate. This
makes the technology very suitable for food industry sites.
Furthermore, the process residues can be used as
bio-fertiliser. Target customers are mainly agricultural
operators, food manufacturers, the food trade and sustainable
biomass producers. Founded in 2004 as an spin-off of the
Belgium's Catholic University of Leuven (UCL), GreenWatt
is currently active in the Benelux countries and France and
will use the financing to expand globally.
"GreenWatt offers customers in this sector a robust,
highly efficient and automated technology with great
potential. That's what convinced us. We are happy to welcome
with GreenWatt the first Belgian company in our investment
portfolio," sais Crispin Leick, Managing Director of
Innogy Venture Capital.
Philippe Mengal, CEO of GreenWatt, commented: "GreenWatt
is delighted to welcome Gimv, RWE Innogy and the other
partners among its shareholders. After the successful proof
of our concept and business model over the last two years,
this substantial capital increase will allow us to accelerate
the international expansion of GreenWatt. Our new investors
will also provide valuable industrial connections to support
our growth."