Company Overview

Imperative Energy Ltd (IEL) was founded in 2007 to supply renewable energy (heat, steam and electricity) generated from biomass fuel to clients in the industrial, commercial and public sectors through purposely designed plant located at the client’s site.  Imperative Energy is a leading supplier in Biomass Boilers, biomass heating solutions in the UK and Ireland and has deep expertise in the following areas:
• Biomass System Design
• Installation and Commissioning of Biomass Systems
• Operation and Maintenance
• Innovative Financial Solutions

In September 2014, the company was acquired by Gaelectric Holdings PLC, an Irish Headquartered wind farm developer.  Gaelectric is active in the Irish, UK and USA markets as a lead developer of large scale onshore wind projects.  It is also developing a c240MWe Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) plant in Northern Ireland.  The Gaelectric Acquisition broadens Imperative Energy’s resources to include in-house teams in the following disciplines:
• Corporate Finance
• Energy Markets
• Planning/Permitting
• Construction Management

Overview

Imperative Energy Ltd (IEL) offers two primary product/service packages:

Energy Supply Contract (ESCO): a long-term energy supply contract under which IEL covers design, fuel supply, equipment supply, finance, installation, operation and maintenance, and the client is invoiced for metered energy use on a monthly basis at a pre-agreed index-linked price.  The ESCO model is an ideal low risk option for clients as IEL bears all of the capital cost and operational responsibility for the biomass system (including fuel delivery, ash removal and boiler maintenance).

System Supply & Install (Equipment / Fuel Only): clients can choose to cover the capital cost of the biomass system themselves, in which case IEL completes a straightforward Supply & Install.  This offer can be linked to a long-term service/maintenance and fuel supply contract of wood chip or wood pellets from IEL.

IEL supplies a complete range of leading biomass boiler products, ranging from 30kW to 6MW for typical commercial/public sector clients, and anything up to 25MW and more in the industrial sector for applications covering Heat, Steam and Combined Heat and Power (CHP).

In all cases, IEL will conduct a Feasibility Study to analyse the client’s energy requirements and then design an installation that meets the majority of those requirements through biomass as efficiently and effectively as possible.

We provide a complete Operations & Maintenance Service with guaranteed SLAs.  We stock a supply of key spare parts within the country to ensure rapid response and resolution times to technical faults.  A standby oil or gas boiler is also maintained to meet peak demands and to provide backup.

About Bioenergy

The industrialised world is in the early stages of a revolution which will see it switch from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy over the next 50 years.  The scale and scope of the transition will be enormous.

The need for change is driven by:

• Global Energy Demand, which is expected to double between 2005 and 2050 and will require new sources of fuel to meet the demand
• Fossil Fuel Prices, which in spite of recent price falls, are expected to continue a sharp upward trend over the next 10 years and will remain highly volatile in the short term
• Security of Supply, given that the EU and the US are over-dependent on imported oil and gas from Russia and the Middle East and are highly vulnerable to volatility in prices and the prevailing geo-political situation
• Climate Change, which demands huge reductions in the level of carbon emissions by governments worldwide in order to stem rising global temperatures

In short, the switch to renewable sources of energy is both a regulatory and an economic imperative.

Bioenergy is the oldest source of renewable energy known to mankind.  There is a range of options in terms of biomass fuel type, including:

• Wood chip
• Wood pellets
• Wood shavings/residues
• Energy crops (e.g. miscanthus, willow)
• Empty fruit bunches (EFB), e.g. shell fibre from oil palm production
• Refuse-derived fuel (RFD) from municipal, industrial or agricultural waste

The energy contained within this organic material is released through a conversion process such as combustion, pyrolysis or gasification.

Biomass has a number of critical features as a source of energy:

• it is carbon neutral, in that the carbon produced by combustion is naturally balanced out by the carbon captured during photosynthesis thereby creating a closed carbon cycle
• it is completely sustainable, in that fresh fuel supply can be generated quickly from local agricultural/forestry activity
• it is flexible, in that it can be used as a fuel for heat, power and transport purposes
• it is reliable, it that it can be stored and used on demand unlike wind

Its disadvantage compared to wind, wave and solar energy, is that it has a finite capacity.  As such, it will be utilised as part of the overall renewable energy mix for applications where it best fits, and the key for users will be access to a guaranteed supply of fuel in sufficient volumes and at predictable prices over the long-term.