Gree Energy, an Indonesia-based biogas-to-energy firm, announced Wednesday it has secured $3.2 million pre-series A funding round led by Earthcare Group.
Established in 2013, Gree Energy empowers the food industry to cut methane emissions and treat industrial wastewater in emerging countries by implementing on-site biogas facilities.
The firm makes biogas solutions financially viable by unlocking access to carbon credit markets, green finance, and renewable energy markets.
Gree’s proof of concept, the Hamparan project, located in Lampung on Sumatra Island, is a testament to the potential scale for Gree’s impact model to contribute towards decarbonizing food industries for emerging countries.
The project is already reducing more than 30,000 CO2eq emissions annually and generating almost 10 GWh per year of clean and reliable energy for 19 villages in Lampung, Indonesia.
According to the statement, more than 1,250 food processors in Indonesia have yet to be equipped with adequate wastewater treatment solutions.
This untapped potential represents an opportunity to avoid 50 million tons of CO2eq emissions per annum and provide 40 TWh of clean energy.
In parallel, by 2030, Indonesia aims to increase the share of renewable electricity from 13.5 percent in 2021 to 34 percent and reduce carbon emissions by almost 32 percent with its own efforts (43.2 percent with international assistance).
Biogas is one of the key cornerstones for addressing this twin challenge. Harnessing Indonesia’s biogas potential will require more than $2 billion in investments for biogas wastewater treatment facilities. This will unlock more than $3 billion in investment in distributed biogas energy asset development.
“Gree’s vision to reduce pollution in the agriculture and food sector and to replace energy generated from fossil fuels is key to mitigating climate change and is strongly aligned with Indonesia’s goal to cut its carbon emissions by 43 percent by 2030,” said Andre Barlian, Co-head of Investments from Earthcare Group.
“The company has a uniquely holistic approach that allows them to generate diversified revenue streams with little incremental cost,
“Gree’s business model is also highly replicable in most agricultural-based economies with growing energy demands, which is the case in a very large part of the Global South. The growth potential is tremendous,” he added.
Whilst biogas is a proven technology to meet Indonesia’s renewable energy mix, the opportunities to unlock its full potential are not yet fully tapped.
Gree’s impact model is well-positioned to capture these opportunities in Indonesia and replicate them in other emerging markets that need to meet growing energy demands while decarbonizing and properly treating industrial wastewater.
Gree Energy adopts measurable and independently verifiable environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics to report activities, results, and impacts transparently.
Gree Energy is a B-Corp certified company committed to meeting the highest verified social and environmental performance standards.
Earthcare Group is a catalytic investor focused on identifying and nurturing rapidly scalable solutions to the climate and extinction crises.
Many solutions that could significantly impact restoring healthy ecosystems are already scientifically proven and only require support to realize their full potential.