Sector
Biogas/Biomethane
Investment date
2023
Situation
In portfolio
Contact
info@sumacapital.com
Platform to develop four biomethane generation projects in the Canary Islands. The first plant will be built in Gran Canaria, followed by plants in Tenerife, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote. The plants will manage 128,000 tonnes of organic waste per year with the capacity to generate more than 9,000 tonnes of biomethane (equivalent to 134GWh/year) and 6,760 tonnes of fertiliser.
ATH Bioenergy positions itself as a circular solution for the efficient management of organic waste, especially from the hotel industry, transforming it into biomethane and fertiliser, and supplying it back to hotels and industrial consumers.
ATH Bioenergy is a joint venture between Suma Capital and Tibanna AG, a Swiss company that develops projects aimed at energy transition in remote territories around the world characterised by strong tourism activity.
Currently, the Canary Islands are not equipped to manage the waste generated by the booming tourist activity, forcing large producers to deliver their waste to landfills. ATH Bioenergy’s biomethane plants provide a local and sustainable solution for waste treatment and energy supply to major hospitality and industrial players.
The islands remain heavily dependent on fossil fuel imports which jeopardise the territory’s carbon footprint targets and imply significant operational costs for businesses. Currently, the hotel industry accounts for about 35% of propane imports in the Canary Islands.
The current regulatory framework supports and enhances ATH Bioenergy’s initiative. Waste Law 7/22 obliges large producers of organic waste, including hotels, to recycle or reuse at least 55% of their waste by 2025. The main regulations, the Technical Building Code (CTE) and the Regulation of Thermal Installations in Buildings (RITE), oblige thermal installations to use at least 70% renewable energy to heat swimming pools and domestic hot water.
On a larger scale, biomethane plays an important role in achieving the EU’s decarbonisation targets, as well as reducing the EU’s dependence on fossil fuel imports, while reducing exposure to volatile natural gas prices. Furthermore, the use of digestate as a fertiliser closes the nutrient cycle in regional ecosystems and avoids CO2 emissions that would be released due to the production of mineral fertilisers. The EU has set a target of producing 35 billion cubic metres (35 bcm) of biomethane annually by 2030.
The main advantages of biogas are its potential to decarbonize the demand for fossil fuels, which is usually linked to thermal uses in industry and is difficult to decarbonize with other renewable sources. By transforming organic waste from the hotel industry into biomethane and distributing it back to hotels and industrial consumers, ATH Bioenergy establishes a circular economy platform, managing organic waste and reducing dependence on imported propane in the Canary Islands hotel sector. Additionally, biofertilizers derived from the biogas generation process are also distributed to local farmers, providing a sustainable solution for chemical-free agricultural soil.
The management of waste needed for biogas production may compromise the viability of projects, while the lack of adequate natural gas infrastructure could reduce the interest of industrial consumers in sourcing renewable gas.
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