Wood pellet firm gets investment
AN ALTERNATIVE energy company has landed a £5m investment deal to support its expansion programme.
Venture and capital investor Foresight Group has provided the funding to Land Energy, based in Helmsley, North Yorkshire.
Land Energy, a producer of wood pellets, intends to use the funds for the development of wood pellet production plants.
Each plant will source wood from local forests and produce pellets for local use, delivering renewable wood fuel in the form of wood pellets to schools, homes and offices in the area in order to help them lower their carbon impact.
“We believe that wood pellets for fuel are a key renewable resource,” said Land Energy director Richard McLane. “So this funding is vital to our future plans. We aim to build plants in several UK locations, beginning with one in our home district of Ryedale.”
Foresight focuses on investments in the facilities required to generate renewable energy and cut land-filling.
Matt Taylor, a partner of Foresight Group, said: “Land Energy fits our vision of a business that helps the environment while offering attractive returns to investors. We are working with the company to roll-out the concept to three regions of the UK.
“We strongly believe that local sourcing of wood pellet fuels will gain popularity in the future as people start to count the rising financial and carbon costs of transporting fuel.”
Land Energy expects to create several new jobs at the proposed Wombleton wood pellet production plant in Yorkshire. Creation of these new jobs depends on planning permission being granted for the Wombleton plant.
The process of making wood pellets involves chipping timber, drying it and compressing the finished product into pellets. These pellets are then ready to be burned in domestic or commercial wood pellet boilers.
Land Energy plans to site each plant close to the timber supply it needs, thus keeping the company’s carbon footprint low and in addition supporting the local timber industry.
