EQTEC PLC (AIM:EQT) has confirmed that, further to its announcement on July 20, 2022, its wholly-owned French subsidiary EQTEC France SAS has been notified of final approval from France's Ministère de l'économie des finances et de l'industrie (MINEFI) of its acquistion of the 6.5MWe waste-to-energy gasification plant in Villers-sous-Montrond, France.
The company said, on this basis, EQTEC France has launched an accelerated construction and commissioning programme to upgrade the plant. Once operational, the plant is expected to be France's largest ever combined heat and power (CHP) gasification project, transforming sround 45,000 tonnes of mixed wood waste and refuse-derived fuel (RDF) for export of clean electricity to the national grid, with the option of increasing its production capacity in future. Construction is expected to commence in the first quarter of 2023.
The plant will become an EQTEC Market Development Centre (MDC) for showcasing EQTEC's technical and commercial capabilities with mixed feedstock, including a mixture of Grade A waste wood, Grade B waste wood and RDF, and for catalysing further interest from project funders and owner-operators.
In a statement David Palumbo, CEO of EQTEC, commented: "We are excited to add France as our next MDC, alongside Italy and Croatia. The French market presents a significant and growing pipeline of opportunities for EQTEC, with potential for a network of licence distributors, contractors and other partners that support our journey toward becoming a leading innovator and licensor for Net Zero technology.
"At our core, EQTEC is a clean energy technology innovator, and our strategic focus is to make our leading-edge technology as available as possible to as many owner-operators as we can around the world. Our MDCs in target go-to-market geographies are critical to our progress. MDCs are places where prospective customers and partners can see, hear and touch EQTEC technology in a live, commercial plant and where owner-operators can witness our highly scalable solutions and consider how EQTEC can drive their future lines of business."
The plant, which originally benefitted from around €35 million of investment, has been acquired by the company at a nominal value, as it has been estimated that further investment of around €30 million is required to recommission the plant utilising EQTEC's technology.
Once operational, the plant is expected to generate in excess of €10 million in annual revenues, with further potential to improve its economics. EQTEC said it has received expressions of interest from two French energy companies to potentially become owner-operators, once the plant is successfully commissioned.
David Le-Saint, EQTEC market lead for France, said: "The France MDC will be a showcase in France for EQTEC's leading-edge technology, built on our track record and R&D efforts at our technology centre at the University of Lorraine. It will boost our visibility with alliance partners and our credibility with utility groups and institutional funders."
"The acquisition lifts EQTEC into a much better position to pursue project opportunities in the wake of the energy transition acceleration draft bill due out before the new session of the French Parliament in October. The draft bill aims to simplify permitting and set a new framework for the feed-in tariff on SNG from methanation," he added.
EQTEC designs, supplies and builds advanced gasification facilities in the UK, EU and US, with highly efficient equipment that is modular and scalable from 1MW to 30MW. EQTEC's versatile solutions process over 50 varieties of feedstock, including forestry wood waste, vegetation and other agricultural waste from farmers, industrial waste and sludge from factories and municipal waste, all with no hazardous or toxic emissions.