"Enviva’s Waycross plant is our first wood pellet plant in the state of Georgia and was acquired in 2020. The facility, which has been operating since 2011, has a production capacity of 800,000 metric tons per year," the official website says.



"Enviva is a leading global energy company specializing in sustainable wood bioenergy. We are the world’s largest producer of sustainable wood pellets, which provide a low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels.

"We operate plants and ports in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, with corporate offices in four countries."

"European power utility RWE Innogy has officially opened its 750,000 metric ton-per-year wood pellet manufacturing plant on a 740-acre site near Waycross, Ga., following a ribbon-cutting ceremony held late last week," the Biomass Magazine says.

"At a total cost of about €120 million (about $195 million), the plant and surrounding structures, as well as development of a port, took just over one year to construct.

"Wood pellets produced at the plant will be transported via train to the port of Savannah, Ga., about 100 miles away from the facility, and then shipped to Europe. They will be used primarily by RWE’s coal-fired power plants in the Netherlands, where up to 30 percent of coal-fired power plants are already cofired with biomass, according to the company."

"The plant will have an annual production capacity of 750,000 tonnes, making it the biggest and most modern of its type in the world. The project will be carried out in collaboration with BMC Management AB, which specialises in the development of biomass manufacturing solutions and is based in Sweden. The pellets will be used in pure biomass power plants as well as for the co-firing of coal and biomass. The pellets plant is due to take up operation in 2011. The total investment volume amounts to approx. €120 million," the official Press Release said.

"The biomass pellets will initially be burnt in the existing power plants of Amer in the Netherlands, where currently already up to 30% of the hard coal has been replaced by solid biomass, mainly wood pellets. The considerable volumes of biomass from Georgia will also help us achieve our goal of expanding this cofiring to up to 50%. The CO ₂ reductions achieved will be of a corresponding level. The two power plant units belong to Essent, which RWE took on as a result of the partnership both companies entered in September 2009. They have a total installed capacity of 1,245 MWel as well as 600 MWth. They generate electricity for the equivalent of three million households.

"Forests in Georgia provide enough wood to sustainably produce the pellets. Around 1.5 million metric tonnes of fresh wood are needed each year to produce 750,000 tonnes of pellets. Unlike Europe, the US have a huge growth surplus of wood that is not used. This is particularly true in the Georgia region, from which numerous paper and pulp companies have withdrawn over the past decade, thus further reducing the demand for wood. Wood growth is currently ahead of consumption in Georgia."

"RWE AG is a German multinational energy company headquartered in Essen. It generates and trades electricity in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe and the United States. The company is the world's second-largest offshore wind power generation and Europe's third-largest company in renewable energy. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, the RWE Group was ranked as the 297th-largest public company in the world," the Wikipedia says.

"RWE confirmed in December 2015 that it would separate its renewable energy generation, power grid and retail operations into a separate company, Innogy SE, during 2016, and sell a 10% holding in the business through an initial public offering. The restructuring was prompted by efforts to reduce the group's exposure to nuclear decommissioning costs, required due to a German government policy of closing all nuclear power stations by 2022.

"In July 2020, RWE completed a far-reaching asset swap deal with E.ON first announced in 2018, whereby the international renewable generation portfolio of E.ON and Innogy were transferred to RWE."

"Innogy SE was an energy company based in Essen, Germany. It is now merged and integrated into German energy company E.ON. In March 2018, it was announced that E.ON would acquire Innogy, in a complex deal of assets swap with RWE. The transfer of shares was completed in September 2019.

"The company was created on 1 April 2016, by splitting the renewable, network and retail businesses of RWE into a separate entity. The new entity combined RWE subsidiaries RWE Innogy, RWE Deutschland, RWE Effizienz, RWE Vertrieb and RWE Energiedienstleistungen.

"On 7 October 2016, it was listed at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. They served 23 million customers in Europe. In November 2017, it was announced that Innogy was looking to merge its energy retail subsidiary npower in the United Kingdom, with the equivalent division of rival SSE." (Wikipedia)

"Georgia Biomass, a partnership between RWE Innogy of Germany and BMC of Sweden, will invest $150 million to build its wood pellet plant on Waycross' Industrial Park. Wood pellets are widely used in European power plants as a low-pollution substitute for coal. Once open, Georgia Biomass will create 75 direct jobs and boost timber sales region-wide," the Florida Times Union says.

"Perdue said economic development is all about finding a way to match the state's strengths with a company's needs. In this case, the match between Georgia Biomass and Southeast Georgia "absolutely hits the sweet spot," he said.

"Biomass can be considered a green energy because the carbon emitted by burning fuel pellets is offset by the carbon absorbed when trees are grown, he said."

"Enviva Partners, LP (“Enviva” or the “Partnership”), a leading global energy company specializing in sustainable wood bioenergy, today announced the completion of its previously announced acquisition of a world-class, industrial scale wood pellet production plant in Waycross, Georgia, and associated contracted terminal capacity in Savannah, Georgia. Enviva’s growing operational footprint across the U.S. Southeast now includes nine wood pellet production plants and five deep-water export terminals across Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida," the NASDAQ says.

"The newly acquired Waycross plant has been operating since 2011 and has a production capacity of approximately 800,000 metric tons per year, all of which is exported through the Port of Savannah to Enviva’s customers under long-term take-or-pay off-take contracts, many of which extend until the mid-2040s. Following the acquisition, Enviva’s total annual wood pellet production capacity is approximately 4.9 million metric tons. With the acquisition complete, the Waycross plant is now called, “Enviva Pellets Waycross.”

"The Waycross plant acquisition diversifies Enviva’s manufacturing footprint and expands its operations in a region that supplies one-fifth of the timber used globally each year. Enviva currently is integrating the plant into the wider Enviva organization and looks forward to working closely with local leaders, private forest landowners, and conservation organizations to continue to make a positive impact across the State of Georgia."