News

Please send us news about clean-technology companies, trends, and industry events. All materials are subject to editorial review. E-mail us at editor@cleanedge.com.

indexes

Clean Edge Stock Indexes: Tracking the Performance of U.S.-Traded Clean-Energy and Global Wind and Smart Grid Infrastructure Companies.

Subscribe to Clean Edge RSS

Previous Story
Warning: mysql_fetch_array(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /nfs/c03/h04/mnt/56426/domains/cleanedge.com/html/news/story.php on line 150
| Next Story

South Africa's BioTherm Raises $150 Million for Industrial Waste-to-Power Projects

November 11, 2008
Source: New Energy Finance

South African company BioTherm Energy has raised $150 million from private equity firm Denham Capital to invest in a range of existing projects to help address South Africa's energy supply problems.

BioTherm chief executive Charles Liebenberg said the company plans to invest in projects totalling approximately 300MW involving energy- intensive industrial users such as gas and oil company PetroSA, a ferro-chrome producer and several sugar producers.

BioTherm uses its waste products to generate electricity or steam which it then sells back either to the company or to utility providers, including South Africa's state electricity company Eskom.

In case of PetroSA, BioTherm will use the gas that has been flared for years to generate electricity to feed back to the company. In the case of ferro-chrome production, the feed will be carbon monoxide and in case of the sugar producers the raw material will be left-over biomass.

Liebenberg said: "We are an energy-agnostic company, the principle is the same and we adjust to the recipient technology to avoid waste and provide reliable power.'

He added: "For years South Africa has had cheap energy and an unfortunate result of this is inefficient usage. BioTherm Energy's projects ensure that all forms of energy can be best harnessed."

From early next year the South Africa's Power Conservation Programme will ration electricity supply to all consumers and will require heavy industries to reduce their power usage by a figure in the region of 10%. This is roughly equivalent to the amount of electricity BioTherm's projects provide to the companies they work with. Only in the case of sugar producers will BioTherm produce more electricity, which will then be supplied back into the national grid.