John Laing Environmental invests in Icknield Farm anaerobic digestion plant

Environmental infrastructure fund John Laing Environmental Assets Group announced an investment in the Icknield Farm anaerobic digestion (AD) plant on Friday.

The London-listed firm said the investment consisted of the provision of a debt facility to repay existing loans, and acquisition of a minority equity stake from private individuals who were the project's developers, for an aggregate amount of£11m.

It said the Icknield Farm AD plant, located in Ipsden, South Oxfordshire, was commissioned in December 2014.

The plant has a capacity of 5MW, and predominantly produces biomethane exported to the national gas grid.

In addition, the plant also has a 0.4MW CHP engine, and is accredited under the Renewable Heat Incentive and Feed-in-Tariff.

The Icknield Farm AD plant would be JLEN's second investment in the anaerobic digestion sector, after its recent acquisition of the Vulcan AD plant, with the board pursuing a strategy to establish a portfolio of AD assets, and further diversify its portfolio of environmental infrastructure projects including, wind, solar, waste and wastewater.

John Laing Environmental said the acquisition brought the total capacity of its renewable energy assets in the portfolio to 259.2MW.

The acquisition was funded by a draw-down under the company's revolving credit facility, and from internal cash resources.

“We are pleased to make a further investment in the anaerobic digestion sector through the Icknield Farm AD plant, which has a proven operational history,” said chairman Richard Morse.

“The AD sector is attractive to JLEN due to the high proportion of inflation-linked revenues backed by government subsidy regimes, and we look forward to working with our partners in the sector.”