Steamy Saga (in English)

Brazil’s Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social and an affiliate of ERB – Energias Renováveis do Brasil, a Brazilian biomass-to-energy start-up, closed the R210.7 million (US$103.8 million) project financing for the Aratinga wood-to-energy greenfield project on 28 June 2012, two years after starting work on structuring the deal. BNDES, Brazil’s main long-term infrastructure lender, had never financed a wood-to-energy project before, which contributed to the lengthy financing process. The R265.4 million (US$130.7 million) Aratinga cogeneration project will also be ERB’s first wood-to-energy plant.

The Aratinga project will replace the natural gas-fired steam supply at Dow Chemical’s petrochemical site in Candeias, in the state of Bahia. To this end, ERB is building a dedicated cogeneration unit and planting 10,000 hectares (24,700 acres) of eucalyptus-wood biomass to fuel it. This will produce up to 150 tonnes of steam per hour and fulfil an 18-year steam purchase agreement that serves the site’s chloralkali and chlorohydrin production processes. As a by-product, ERB is also generating 11MW of excess power to dispatch to the grid.

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