by Rebecca Walker — April 8, 2011—Laidlaw Energy Group, Inc. announced that is has acquired control of the power plant located at the former Polaroid manufacturing facility in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
The power plant is currently operational and serves the thermal energy needs of the existing tenants located at the facility. Laidlaw’s plan is to operate the plant as currently configured for the moment while taking the necessary steps to modernize the plant in order to substantially increase its thermal efficiency and to also add an electric generation component in order to create a combined heat and power project.
The hope is that the upgrades to the plant will attract additional tenants to the site and ultimately create a green energy park. There are also neighboring businesses in the industrial park where the plant is situated that may be able to benefit from the excess output of Laidlaw’s plant.
This new asset is expected to add several million dollars in revenue per annum to Laidlaw’s income statement. Once the upgrades are complete it is expected it will create substantial savings for the end-users and a good profit margin for Laidlaw.
The transaction is the first in a series of planned acquisitions that Laidlaw is pursuing across the U.S. Laidlaw is currently in the advanced stages of several other planned acquisitions located in the Northeast, Southeast and West Coast of the U.S.
Laidlaw Energy is engaged in the development of independent power plants that generate electricity from renewable resources, with a particular emphasis on biomass power and combined heat and power projects. For more information, see the Web site.
