Bioflame to double workforce with £4.5m investment

Bioflame, based in Pickering, North Yorkshire, has already secured planning permission for 17 small biomass incinerator plants, which can process up to 30,000 tonnes of waste a year and generate enough power for 6,000 homes.

Two of the sites have already been built in Sandsfield, near Hull, and Caythorpe, Lincolnshire, and two more are in the late stages of construction, including one near Doncaster.

The latest investment from cleantech and renewable energy fund Novusmodus, the 170m fund set up by Irish utility ESB, will provide Bioflame with the working capital to push the roll-out to the next level.

Bioflame plans to start building five or six plants a year and double its 32-strong workforce over the next 12 months.

Four of the planned sites are in Yorkshire, including one in Leeds and another near York.

Although Bioflame has raised 23m in total for the project, primarily through bank funding, managing director Victor Buchanan admitted the last two years have been tough.

"It has been massively difficult over the last couple of years," he said. "We have been very lucky to receive funding from the Co-op Bank for two of the plants and Alliance and Leicester for another but it's not been easy."

Bioflame's patented advanced combustion technology allows for a wide range of biomass waste fuel stocks to be converted into energy.

Materials, such as waste wood, that would previously have been sent to landfill can instead be used to generate green electricity and heat.

It is estimated that over six million tonnes of waste wood is landfilled each year in the UK and Ireland.

Bioflame's generators are small enough to be sited next to existing fuel sources such as recycling facilities, which removes the need for expensive, carbon-intensive transportation and handling logistics.

Mr Buchanan said: "We think it is bonkers to be shipping waste up and down the country to fuel big plants. Lorries can only cope with 22 tonnes at a time so it's both physically and environmentally ridiculous to have plants that are trying to process up 100,000 or 300,000 tonnes of waste."

Bioflame, which won the Innovation category at the Yorkshire Post Environment Awards 2009, is rolling out its technology in partnership with commercial Material Recycling Facilities (MRFs).

ESB Novusmodus's investment will be used to complete the commercialisation of the company's technology, attract project funding and accelerate the rollout of projects.

Each plant costs between 7m and 10m to build with each one creating eight full time jobs on completion.

Legislative momentum is also helping the company with the Government predicting that Biomass could contribute up to 15 per cent of its renewable generation targets, whilst at the same time tightening the restrictions and raising the cost of landfill.

Michael Aherne, of Novusmodus, said: "Bioflame is a very exciting company with a first-rate management team and a novel but robust technology that generates energy from biomass on a distributed basis. It adds to our investment portfolio which includes companies such as Nualight, InTune Networks and Selc."

Mr Buchanan added: "We are delighted that ESB Novusmodus is investing in Bioflame. The combination of the project finance expertise of Novusmodus and the engineering experience of ESB makes ESB Novusmodus a unique partner. We have created a business model that is both profitable and environmentally positive, and are committed to making Bioflame the market leader over the coming years."

Bioflame, which has a turnover of 12m, was advised by cleantech and renewable specialists Altium, who introduced the deal to Novusmodus.

Bioflame, which was founded in 2001, initially developed efficient burners for South American coffee growers to stop them from burning virgin wood and encourage them to burn their waste from the coffee process instead.

The company's technology is now responsible for the conservation of 60,000 cubic metres of rainforest annually – equivalent to half the amount of wood felled in Yorkshire each year.

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