
Paris-based Suez has announced an investment, through its corporate investment fund Suez Ventures, in the France-based technology firm ETIA Group. Suez indicates the investment is being made “through a joint shareholding in ETIA alongside the Race for Water Foundation on one side and in the startup COGEBIO, alongside Demeter 3A and ETIA on the other side.”
The aim of the €4.2 million ($5.1 million) is to “support ETIA Group’s development in France and internationally and to create a full range of solutions for the production of green energy,” according to Suez.
Suez states that the market in renewable energies from biomass and waste is growing rapidly in France, Europe and internationally, boosted by favorable economic and regulatory environments. Consumption of biomass for industrial heat production, the firm indicates, has doubled from 2013 to 2017 in Europe and is set to reach 20 million metric tons in 2021.
“These investments fit in perfectly with the strategy of Suez, a key player in the circular economy,” says Loïc Voisin, the innovation, marketing and performance director of Suez. “They allow the group to expand its production of green, decentralized energy by developing new ways of recovering collected and transformed waste,” adds Voisin.
The investments are targeted to produce energy and fuels using “all types of biomass and dry waste (wood, sludge, plastics, solid recovered fuels, etc.),” according to a Suez news release.
“The joint shareholding with Suez Ventures not only represents a mark of confidence from a corporate fund specializing in ‘waste to energy’ issues, but also a fantastic boost for the ETIA Group in positioning itself as a leading company in the conversion of biomass and waste into high value-added products and energy,” comments Olivier Lepez, chairman of ETIA and COGEBIO.
ETIA describes itself as a French engineering office and equipment supplier specializing in technology related to continuous thermal treatment processes and equipment for loose products for the agribusiness sector and for the recovery of residual biomass and waste for transformation into materials and renewable energy.
COGEBIO, part of the ETIA Group, designs systems for the production of heat and electricity using biomass and waste gasification technology fed by discarded materials.
Suez, with 90,000 employees on five continents, describes itself as “a global leader in smart and sustainable resource management.” The operating units of the company recover 17 million metric tons of discarded materials per year and produce 3.9 million metric tons of secondary raw materials.
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