Top: BDC’s food waste digester under construction at the Maryland Food Center Authority in Jessup.
Bioenergy Devco, a global developer of anaerobic digestion (AD) facilities, recently announced that it secured $100 million in financing from funds managed by Irradiant Partners, LP (Irradiant), an alternative investment manager with expertise in climate infrastructure, private equity and credit. The new capital will support development of multiple AD facilities to drive sustainable organic waste recycling and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in North America, says Shawn Kreloff, Founder and CEO of Bioenergy Devco (BDC). Irradiant joins BDC’s existing investor base that includes Newlight Partners LP, a growth equity investment firm, and Sagewind Capital LLC, a New York-based middle-market private equity firm. “Knowing BDC’s global footprint and history, we saw an incredible opportunity to work with a company taking a revolutionary approach to holistic sustainability along with the management of waste, renewable energy production and supporting healthy soils,” notes Jon Levinson, Co-CEO of Irradiant, which has funds that invest in clean energy generation products. “AD plays a role in solving two big problems, energy and waste.”
BDC has about 20 anaerobic digesters in development, according to Kreloff, including two under construction in Sussex County, Delaware and Jessup, Maryland. In 2020, BDC purchased an existing composting plant in Sussex County from Perdue Farms and entered into a 20-year contract with Perdue to digest poultry processing plant waste from four facilities. The Jessup facility is located at the Maryland Food Center Authority (MFCA) and will have the capacity to accept more than 115,000 tons of organic material annually. “A few things are needed for a good project, including feedstock and access to that feedstock,” explains Kreloff. “Being adjacent to MFCA provides both.”
The facility will have depackaging capacity. Digestate will be separated, with most of the liquid returning to the front end of the plant as processing water, and the solids diverted to composting. Biogas will be conditioned on-site to renewable natural gas (RNG) and injected into the Baltimore Gas and Electric pipeline. “This will be the first RNG project in Maryland,” he adds. Commissioning of the facility is expected to get underway in the first quarter of 2022.
