Ripasso Energy signs letter of intent with Glencore
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The Swedish clean tech company Ripasso Energy AB has signed a letter of intent with Glencore Operations South Africa (Proprietary) Limited for the installation of at least 44 and no more than 136 PWR BLOK units at Glencore's Lydenburg facility and/or its Lion facility in South Africa. The aim is to enter into a five to eight-year agreement under which Ripasso Energy will harness and extract energy from the facilities' residual gases, thereby generating electricity that Glencore undertakes to purchase. According to the letter of intent, the parties intend to enter into binding agreements by 31 March 2019 at the latest.
"We have been able to show in a very short time that the Stirling engine and the PWR BLOK are the best solution for harnessing residual gas energy, both from a cost perspective and an environmental one. One of the world's largest mining companies choosing to sign a letter of intent gives us the opportunity to prove the technology at scale," says Gunnar Larsson, CEO of Ripasso Energy.
The available residual gas at Glencore's facilities at Lion and Lydenburg gives Ripasso the opportunity to build a plant with capacity of at least 18 MW, with the potential to expand capacity to a total of 54 MW. The project may become the largest waste-to-energy project of its kind in Africa. The solution reduces Glencore's carbon dioxide emissions caused by electricity consumption by between 154,000 and 476,000 tonnes/year.