Ineos announced this month that its joint-venture project, Ineos New Planet BioEnergy finalized $75 million in private financing utilizing the USDA loan guarantee program for its new Indian River BioEnergy Center located in Florida. This is the first large-scale advanced bioenergy project in the U.S. to finalize its financing in the latest round under the USDA government program to commercialize biorefinery technology. The financing concludes all necessary funding to complete the project and will be used for equipment, engineering and construction of the BioEnergy Center. The BioEnergy Center, located near Vero Beach, Fla., is a commercial-scale project that will produce 8 MMgy of advanced biofuels and 6 megawatts (gross) of renewable power annually from renewable biomass including local yard, vegetative and household wastes.

“We want to commend the USDA on its partnership with us in advancing this bioenergy technology and making it commercially available,” said Peter Williams, CEO of Ineos Bio and Chairman of Ineos New Planet BioEnergy. “The Vero Beach BioEnergy Center is the first of its kind in the world and provides a template for a technology that can make a real contribution to energy independence and job creation, while also reducing green house gas emissions and diverting wastes from landfill and lower value uses.”

The project will use Ineos Bio’s feedstock-flexible BioEnergy technology, which uses a unique combination of gasification and fermentation technology to turn different types of waste materials, including municipal solid waste, into advanced biofuels and renewable power. When completed, the project is slated to be one of the first projects in the U.S. to produce advanced cellulosic biofuels under the RFS2 and provide renewable power for 1,400 homes in the area. 

The financing for the project includes a $75 million privately financed loan backed by a guarantee from the USDA through its 9003 Biorefinery Assistance program. Construction is already approximately 20 percent complete at the BioEnergy Center, and will be completed by end April 2012. Over 85 percent of the equipment for the project is being supplied by manufacturers in the U.S., creating or retaining jobs in the cleantech industrial sector. The project is also utilizing local companies for construction and other services, specifically recruiting at the NASA Space Center, where the recently concluded Shuttle Program has laid off thousands of skilled workers. In total, the BioEnergy Center will provide 380 direct and indirect jobs (including 200 construction jobs) over the next year and 50 full-time jobs when the facility is operational.

As the first plant in the world to use Ineos Bio’s advanced bioenergy technology, the BioEnergy Center will serve as a reference plant demonstrating the economic conversion of a variety of different biomass feedstocks into advanced biofuel and renewable power at full commercial scale. To meet the U.S. Government’s goal of replicating the technology, Ineos Bio will enter into licensing agreements with third parties to build similar commercial bioenergy plants to supply advanced bioethanol and renewable electricity around the U.S. and the world.