Raiffeisen Bank Aval will provide Gals Agro €10 million for the biogas plants construction

Raiffeisen Bank Aval and agroholding Gals Agro signed a €10 million loan agreement under the renewable energy project financing program.

This is reported by the press service of the company.

The credit funds will be sent by the agroholding for the construction and commissioning of 3 biogas plants with a total capacity of 6 MW in Chernigov and Kiev regions. Biogas plants will be operated by one of the holding companies - Gorodishche-Pustovarovskaya agrarian company.

"Gals Agro expands its field of activity. Now in the company's business chains there will be a component of bioenergy and power generation. This will make it possible to use the company's resources more effectively, to increase the income from existing assets," comments the director of the agricultural holding Sergey Kravchuk.

Director for Corporate Business Raiffeisen Bank Aval Ruslan Spivak notes that the bank is considering financing projects aimed at improving energy efficiency as one of the priority areas.

"We supported this project, as it is a natural step in the innovative development of the agricultural holding and can serve as an example of introducing advanced solutions for the industry," Ruslan Spivak says.

Biogas will be produced by Gals Agro from organic waste of agricultural and sugar production — beet pulp, silage of energy crops, cattle and pig manure. In total, it is planned to produce 23.3 million cubic meters of biogas per year, of which 51.5 million kWh of electricity can be produced for the implementation of the "green tariff".

Heat received during the production process will be used for the needs of the holding: heating of livestock complexes and development of greenhouse facilities. The substrate, dumped in the biogas plant, will become a fertilizer for the cultivation of environmentally friendly products on agricultural lands of Gals Agro.

The total cost of the project is about €17 million.

According to calculations of the company's specialists, the project is recoupable and economically profitable. This year it is planned to launch the first biogas plant in Chernigov region, the second and the third ones should be launched in 2018.