California Bioenergy LLC (CalBio) announced a funding partnership, of up to $500 million, with Brookfield Renewable and its institutional partners (Brookfield) to scale CalBio’s growth in renewable natural gas and other waste-to-energy opportunities.
CalBio has established a market-leading position partnering with dairy farmers to design, build, own and operate waste-to-energy projects. CalBio is currently capturing fugitive dairy methane and converting it into biomethane from over 50 operational manure digesters. Independently, and in partnership with leading energy and utility companies, the captured methane is used as CNG to replace diesel.
Brookfield is pursuing this investment through the Brookfield Global Transition Fund I (BGTF), which is the largest fund in the world focused on the energy transition. CalBio’s successful and proven track record combined with Brookfield’s global reach, strong commercial and industrial relationships, and capital will accelerate the company’s next phase of growth and continue the expansion of decarbonization solutions and reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
“This partnership with Brookfield is another positive step forward in expanding our carbon negative renewable natural gas and electricity businesses,” said N. Ross Buckenham, Chairman and CEO of CalBio. “Our methane capture and refining projects are delivering significant environmental benefits, improving economics for our farm partners and supplying diesel and gasoline replacement fuels. With Brookfield as an investor and a strategic partner we intend to continue to expand our important work with agricultural feedstock partners to produce more carbon negative fuels and food that clean and feed the planet.”
With Brookfield’s funding and a supportive agricultural carbon price, CalBio plans to more than double biomethane production over the next five years with continued expansion of its California digester projects and selective expansion into other States. Currently, CalBio is reducing emissions by over 1 million metric tons of CO2e per year and with expanding state and federal carbon credit programs, it is targeting two to three million tons per year of CO2e of reductions.
“We are thrilled to partner with CalBio to expand its production of renewable natural gas. Our transition investing strategy is to identify businesses that are driving a meaningful decarbonization benefit and to support them with capital and expertise to accelerate the rollout of their infrastructure,” said Jehangir Vevaina, Chief Investment Officer of Brookfield Renewable. “CalBio represents a high-quality entry point to the renewable natural gas market, and we look forward to working with them to scale the business.”
Source: CalBio
