Environmental infrastructure fund JLEN has bought a 70% stake in an anaerobic digestion (AD) plant and associated waste collection business in the UK.

The AD facility, owned by Bio Collectors Holdings (BCH) through its subsidiary companies, was commissioned in December 2013 and has been expanded through several phases.

It has a thermal capacity of around 10MW, a waste processing capacity of up to 100,000 tonnes per annum and predominantly produces biomethane to be injected into the gas grid.

The plant also has two combined heat and power (CHP) engines with a 1.7MW capacity and is accredited under the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) and Feed-in Tariff (FiT) schemes.

The Bio Collectors waste collections business gathers source-separated and packaged good waste for the AD plant from a variety of commercial, industrial and local authorities located in and around Greater London using biogas-powered fleet.

The 70% stake in BCH has been bought from private individuals, with the rest of the share retained by the existing owner.

JLEN Chair Richard Morse said: “The acquisition of a food waste fed AD plant in London, bridges two subsectors of JLEN’s existing portfolio, leveraging experience of the agricultural AD assets and the waste processing assets.

“The production of biogas to inject into the national grid and also to power its own fleet of collection vehicles, underlines the importance that assets such as these play in the UK’s ambition to decarbonise its energy supply. We also value the opportunity to continue to work with the existing private shareholder to drive further value in the investment in future years.”

The acquisition increases JLEN’s total capacity of renewable energy assets in its portfolio to 297.9MW.