Blue Sphere offers projects update

Charlotte, North Carolina-based Blue Sphere Corp. has released a letter from its CEO Shlomi Palas updating the status of projects the company has been involved in 2015 and 2016.

Blue Sphere describes itself as “a clean energy company that develops, manages and owns waste-to-energy projects” [by] “using organic wastes (such as uneaten food) as its main feedstock.” Among the company’s technology providers is Italy-based Austep, which designs and builds biogas plants using the anaerobic digestion (AD) of organic waste to produce electrical and thermal energy.

Palas says Blue Sphere acquired four facilities in Italy in 2015 and ended the year with two principal projects in development in the United States. The U.S. projects in North Carolina and Rhode Island are biogas plants that received financing, began construction and were nearing completion at the end of 2015, according to Palas.

In Italy, the company says it obtained the necessary financing and completed the acquisitions of four operating biogas facilities, each with long-term power purchase agreements already in place.

Palas cites three primary goals for Blue Sphere in 2016:

• bringing the North Carolina and Rhode Island biogas projects to full operational status;
• further developing a pipeline of more projects in the waste-to-energy sector; and
• completing one or more acquisitions of operating facilities prior to the end of calendar year 2016.

Relative to the two current U.S. projects, Palas says construction on the North Carolina biogas facility “began in early 2015.” He describes the North Carolina project as a 5.2-megawatt biogas generation facility. “To date, we have completed all primary construction of the facility and expect to commence operation in the first quarter of 2016. The facility has a signed 15-year power purchase agreement to sell power to Duke Energy,” writes Palas

Construction on the Rhode Island biogas facility began in mid-2015, and Palas says Blue Sphere also expects to “commence operation in the first quarter of 2016” at that plant. The facility has a signed 15-year power purchase agreement to sell power to utility firm National Grid, according to Palas.

The company also has issued proposals in response to two RFPs for projects in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and is pursuing additional opportunities in Israel, Italy, Western Europe and Southern Asia, says Palas.