2017年3月27日
弊社の２MWガス化システムWoodRoll®を提供している業務提携先のCortus Energy ABは、カリフォルニア州マリポサにおいて同WoodRoll®を建設するにあたり、カリフォルニア州エネルギー委員会（California Energy Commission）よりUSD 5 million（1ドル＝110円で約5.5億円）の補助金を受けることが決定しました。
森林の皆伐や間伐が長いこと低調であったことを問題視したカリフォルニア州は、高効率な小規模バイオマスエネルギーシステムを普及させるため、USD 10 millionの投資枠を設定しました。公募プロジェクトの中から2つのプロジェクトに対してそれぞれUSD 5 million投資する決定をしており、WoodRoll®は候補の中で最高点の評価を得ています。
本プロジェクトは現在許認可の取得に向けた手続きを進めており、2018年に着工する見通しです。
＜原文＞
Kista, March 27, 2017
The project in Mariposa receives investment grant of USD 5 million from California Energy Commission
The project in Mariposa, California, designed to generate electricity from a modular 6 MW WoodRoll received March 24 an investment grant of USD 5 million from California Energy Commission to demonstrate new high-efficiency small scale biomass power technology. The support is a major step towards establishing the first WoodRoll project on the North American market.
Cortus Energy in collaboration with a non-profit local group in Mariposa, California, “Mariposa Biomass Project” (MBP) are developing a project for small-scale biomass power. The project intends to gasify local forest products to 6 MW energy gas in a modular WoodRoll. The energy gas drives a gas engine which produces 2.4 MW of electricity. The thinning and harvesting from the forests in California has for a long time been on a too low level. This has caused severe forest fires and extensive tree mortality due to the bark beetle. With this as background, the state of California has introduced a strong support system for small-scale biomass power in form of feed-in tariffs and investment subsidies. $ 10 million was allocated to demonstrate new high efficiency technologies in two different projects. The project in Mariposa was the project that received the highest evaluation score and received an investment grant of $ 5 million. The grant is allocated to the project and is administered by Mariposa County Resource Conservation District.
MBP is now running the process to ensure all the necessary permits. The environmental permit is submitted shortly. Decision for all needed permits is expected to be completed during the second half of 2017. Cortus Energy intends to build and co-own the plant. Discussions with various potential local partners has begun. In addition to team up with local partners, the financing and long term feedstock supply must be secured as well as a satisfactory level and length of the feed-in tariff must be reached before starting implementation of the project. The conditions for an investment decision is expected to be in place during the first half of the 2018.
“The investment grant is very encouraging and confirms the leap that WoodRoll represents to gasify biomass in a highly efficient manner. The grant means that the conditions for a first WoodRoll projects in North America are good,” says Rolf Ljunggren, CEO Cortus Energy.
For further information, please contact:
Rolf Ljunggren, CEO
Tel: +46 (0) 8 588 866 30
www.cortusenergy.com
About Cortus Energy
Cortus Energy develops and markets the unique WoodRoll technology which gasify biomass in a new innovative manner that results in a number of unique advantages over all other existing gasification technology. With the patented WoodRoll technology Cortus Energy offers green energy solutions for power, industrial and transportation applications. WoodRoll has great feedstock flexibility, which means that the process can utilize low-grade renewable feedstock without compromising the process performance. Cortus Energy’s shares are traded on Nasdaq First North, Stockholm, Sweden. Mangold Fondkommission AB, tel +46 8-503015 50, is the Company’s Certified Adviser