State company Gas Networks Ireland (GNI) is weighing a bid for key equipment owned by Green Generation, which went into receivership this month, it is understood.
The Irish Strategic Investment Fund appointed Shane McCarthy and Cormac O’Connor of accountants KPMG as receivers to Clonbio Green Gas Ltd, trading as Green Generation, at the company’s invitation, three weeks ago.
GNI is understood to be considering a bid for Green Generation’s biogas injection site at Cush, Co Kildare, one of the biomethane manufacturer’s key assets.
The equipment enables the injection of biogas into the natural gas network, which GNI already owns and operates, facilitating its transport and use.
Such sites are needed to execute the Government’s biomethane strategy, which calls for the renewable gas to replace some of the fossil fuel natural gas on which the State relies to generate large amounts of electricity and to power many industries.
Neither GNI nor the receivers would comment on any bid.
GNI is spending €32 million building its own biogas injection site at Mitchelstown in Co Cork. The company says 22 producers have expressed interest in supplying gas to the facility.
Biomethane is a natural renewable or biogas produced from processing farm waste. It is widely used in Europe.
Green Generation’s shareholders, specialist manufacturer Clonbio and the Costello family, blame competition from cheap biofuel imports from China and southeast Asia, which the industry warns are fraudulently labelled, for the decision to call in the receivers.
This week the European Commission proposed suspending recognition of International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) for biofuels made from waste, the main cause of the industry’s fraud concerns, for 2½ years.
If member states back the move, this will give them discretion over whether or not to accept or reject biofuel made from waste and certified under this system as valid renewable fuel.
An estimated 95 per cent of the biofuel sold in the Republic is ISCC certified.
Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien recently pledged to end extra State incentives to suppliers of biofuel made from palm oil mill waste, one of the sources of potential fraud highlighted by Green Generation’s backers.
Unexplained surges in the production of fuel from mill effluent and waste cooking oil sparked concerns that suppliers in China and southeast Asia were processing virgin palm oil for fuel.
Palm oil production leads to deforestation and consequently the EU does not class it as a sustainable fuel.
