Rothschild-backed renewable energy group Tamar planning to raise £65m
FINANCIER Jacob Rothschild’s London-listed RIT Capital Partners, Sainsbury and the Duchy of Cornwall are among a group of investors who plan to invest more than £65m in a clean technology start-up focused on producing energy from organic waste matter.
The new company, Tamar Energy, will develop a network of around 44 anaerobic digestion plants to generate 100 megawatt of green electricity over the next five years, the consortium said yesterday.
Anaerobic digestion is the conversion of organic waste material into biogas by bacteria. The methane-rich biogas can then be used either in a local generating plant to produce electricity, or cleaned and injected into the gas grid.
Sainsbury, which is investing £2m, said it will work with suppliers to ensure that they have access to Tamar’s new plants, which would reduce waste in the supply chain.
The UK is lagging behind competitor countries in this form of renewable energy; Germany, for example, has around 1,000 times more plants than in the UK, partly due to more attractive subsidies.
Alan Lovell, the former Costain chief executive who is Tamar chairman, said that some of the management team would be investing in the new company and would own a total stake that amounts to around five per cent of the company.
He said the management were “open-minded” about the future. “The aim is to run the company for a number of years and then decide whether to sell or list,” he said.