News
Another nice feature in The Recorder this week talked about how the project has been financed by a supportive community and its 'patient capital.'
"If you think there’s alchemy in turning waste french-fry oil and stir-fry oil into fuel for diesel vehicles and home heating, consider the magic of building a biodiesel factory in the Greenfield Industrial Park — and ensuring that it is a locally owned, co-operative venture..." Continue here.
"Northeast Biodiesel LLC, owned by the Florence-based Co-Op Power energy cooperative, received its temporary certificate of occupancy last week as well as its first delivery of waste vegetable oil, to be used in its British-made Green Fuels processor that will begin churning out 1.75 million gallons a year of heating oil and diesel fuel in the coming weeks."
Read on here.
Our recycled-oil-to-biodiesel refinery in Greenfield, MA, is now hiring staff in anticipation of starting up operation! The plant will collect used cooking oil from around the region and turn it into fuel for trucks, tractors, cars, and home heating oil systems. If you know someone looking for good work in western Massachusetts, send them here.
BOSTON – Sometime next month a new plant in Greenfield should start cranking out clean biodiesel fuel that is manufactured from recycled cooking oil. Co-op Power CEO Lynn Benander says the plant will take cooking oil waste from restaurants, schools and institutions in the area and convert it into millions of gallons of a clean source of energy that works in both vehicles and for heating homes.
Read more and listen here.
By RICHIE DAVIS For the Gazette - Sep 4, 2015
Long in the planning to ensure it is locally owned, the Northeast Biodiesel plant nearly ready at the Greenfield Industrial Park is getting a final boost from a 160-member, community-based nonprofit finance system.
The $200,000, seven-year loan is provided by Ashfield-based Common Good Finance to Co-op Power, a Hatfield-based energy cooperative that is developing the $4.2 million biodiesel plant. It will cap a six-month campaign to raise the final $850,000 so the plant can begin producing biodiesel fuel from used vegetable oil.
Article by The Recorder
Friday, May 8, 2015
(Published in print: Saturday, May 9, 2015)
The member-owned co-op that’s trying to build a $4.2 million biodiesel factory in the Greenfield Industrial Park is racing toward a June 1 deadline on construction bids to raise what it says is the final $850,000 for the project that has been in the works for more than 10 years.
Two-thirds of the Northeast Biodiesel factory, on a 26.5-acre Silvio Conte Drive site, is complete, and some of the 475 members of the Hatfield-based Co-op Power Energy Cooperative have stepped forward in the past month with $500,000 in new loan commitments toward the final $1.3 million in financing.
“Assembling the financing for Northeast Biodiesel from the ground up has been a long haul,” said Lynn Benander, chief operating officer of co-op. “This is a very serious moment for us ... But we’ve made tremendous progress in the past year and are ready to get the plant finished if we can clear this final hurdle in time.”
The co-op is appealing to its current members to dig deeper and hoping that new backers will join the co-op and contribute toward the remaining goal so it can meet its deadline to award bids that have come in for final work on the project. The co-op would love to sign up more members “who would like to see a locally owned manufacturing plant come back to Greenfield ... feeding the local economy,” said Benander.
If they miss the deadline, the project would be delayed yet again, costing thousands, because the contractors and a general manager the co-op has hired would move on to other projects.
“This is the first time we’ve known exactly how much we need to finish the job,” said Benander.
Co-op Power has raised and spent more than $2 million to date for the land, site work, foundation and building, installed tanks, equipment and a biodiesel processor. The group has received a building permit to complete construction. In the past few months, Co-op Power has hired a general manager and has completed final engineering designs and received construction bids. Once funds have been secured, final plans will be submitted to the town for the final permit, said Benander.
The facility, with a startup capacity of producing 5,000 gallons of biodiesel a day from used cooking oil, was originally projected to be ready for 2006.
The biodiesel can be used for heating as well as diesel-powered farm equipment, construction equipment and vehicles.
Once operational, it should be able to add a second processor within a year, for a total capacity of 3.5 million gallons a year, according to Benander, whose co-op is the majority owner of Northeast Biodiesel.
“It’s time to launch,” she said. “We have everything in place to get the plant finished and in production.”
With our plant targeted to go online in January 2015, Northeast Biodiesel and Co-op Power have begun the process of recruiting new local restaurants in Franklin, Hampshire, and Hamden(VT) county to participate in waste oil collection. This is the first step in creating a sustainable Community Biofuel Cycle and building a veggie powered economy! We are always looking for volunteers to help us with outreach and restaurant recruitment. If you're interested in volunteering to help sign up new restaurants in your community, please contact us at info@cooppower.coop or at 413-772-8892.
Northeast Biodiesel has hired three new interns through the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center’s Fall Internship Program. Laura Addabbo is a Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency student at Greenfield Community College. Bryant Davis and Alex Ziter are both participating in the Clean Energy Certificate Program at Holyoke Community College. They all will be assisting in various tasks to ready for the opening of the plant, including organizing new volunteer programs for restaurant recruitment, researching the installation of a member-only biofuel pump, and tapping new potential volunteers within their own college communities.