Refgas Ltd has conducted a group of activities during SME-instrument phase 1 project RENEGAS in order to assess the feasibility of the commercialisation of the gasification system and to develop a commercial business plan. The following activities were conducted:
1. Analysis of the identified markets. A market analysis of Europe, Canada, Australia and United Kindgom has been conducted in order to assess which markets are most suitable for launching the gasification system. The Main findings were:
- For Europe, most attractive markets are: Italy, Croatia, Germany and Finland, considering their feed-in tariffs, current size of the bio-energy market and availability of feedstock.
- In the Canadian market, Refgas could target certain locations which are off the national grid and do not have access to cheap electricity, such as remote off-grid communities and extraction / mining sites.
- The opportunities of the Australian market are limited; due to climate conditions it is hard to utilise heat energy, making electricity produced by the plant more expensive. Also, the feedstock availability in large areas of the country is relatively small.( Note, hot water from the CHP system can be used to produce cooling for air conditioning via an absorption chiller)
- For UK market, the biomass gasification opportunities are highly reliant on the RES (Note ROCs and in future CFDs in the UK) support scheme. To hedge this risk it is recommended to create a new stream of revenue: waste gasification (waste gasification modules will not rely on support and will be profitable even without it). The best waste gasification business opportunities in UK are to target operators of industrial zones and (or) companies in industrial zones who would use waste as feedstock and to target renewable energy developers.
2. Analysis of target groups’ needs, requirements and expectations related to the product
Three broad groups of potential customers were formed according to the projects Refgas is currently developing, enquiries from potential customers and results of identified markets analysis:
- Industry
- Remote communities and companies at remote locations
- Renewable energy developers
The main findings are that for each target group, Refgas was able to identify specific targeted value propositions aligned to the specific needs and requirements of each target group. The needs and requirements were categorised into the functional requirements for the system and the specific needs and demands regarding the process of decision making and the economic and financial needs.
3. Elaboration of the Business Plan. Based on the results from the other activities, a tailored business model was elaborated and a business plan for commercialisation was developed.
The main finding were:
The value proposition of Refgas is the offer of small, easily scalable combined heat and power generation solution which can use low quality feedstocks and meets end-of-waste requirements. It is based on 5 selling points which all together provide the uniqueness of Refgas solution:
- Small footprint
- Scalability
- Combined production of heat and
- Ability to use low quality feedstock
- Meeting “end of waste” requirements.
Two different business lines will be applied when dealing with home market (UK) and export markets (Canada, Australia and rest of EU):
1. Current model for UK market – Refgas plans to expand in the UK using the current business model. The model consists of Refgas dividing operations between in-house and outsourced tasks.
2. Licensing for overseas – for other markets. Refgas plans to expand to other countries by selling country-exclusive licensed production deals.
