Former LowCVP 'Champion' wins in £25m Advanced Biofuels Demonstration Competition
Mon 07 September 2015
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The Department for Transport has announced three winners of its £25 million Advanced Biofuels Demonstration Competition aimed at accelerating the domestic advanced biofuels industry. One of the biggest winners is Edinburgh-based Celtic Renewables, a past winner of the LowCVP's Low Carbon Champions Fuel Initiative Award.
Celtic Renewables has been awarded £11m to fund a plant to make biofuels from Scotch whisky by-products, with plans to open three more commercial plants across the country. Advanced Plasma Power in Swindon will also receive £11m to help develop biofuels from ordinary household waste, while Nova Pangaea Technologies, based in Tees Valley, will receive £3m to help make biofuels from forestry waste.
Transport minister Andrew Jones commented on the announcement, saying: “Biofuels have an important role to play in keeping Britain moving forward in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way".
Converting waste to transport fuel could be worth £130m in gross value added to the UK by 2030 and up to £500m per year including exports, according to an independent feasibility study.
Celtic Renewables was the 2014 winner of the LowCVP Low Carbon Champions Award for Fuel Initiative of the Year.
Professor Martin Tangney of Celtic Renewables, said: “The construction of our demonstration facility will herald the reintroduction of acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation to the UK for the first time since the 1960s, but this time for advanced biofuel production using entirely sustainable raw materials.”
The APP plant in Swindon will be the first of its kind in the world and take residual waste and convert it into compressed biomethane.
Construction of the plant will begin in 2016 and the consortium has already found local customers for the product and suppliers for the feedstock. The post-recycling residual waste will be provided by a local source, and the gas produced will be used by local haulage company, Howard Tenens, and consortium partner CNG Services.
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