John Laing Environmental Assets Group has acquired the Merlin anaerobic digestion (AD) plant for £18.1 million.

The plant is located in Hibaldstow, North Lincolnshire and was commissioned in September 2014. It has a thermal capacity of 5MWt and predominantly produces biomethane to be injected to the national gas grid. In addition, the plant also has a 0.5MWe CHP engine and is accredited under the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) and Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) schemes.

The plant was acquired from venture capital funds managed by Downing LLP and minority shareholders. Future Biogas Limited will continue to provide management, operations and maintenance services to the AD plant after the acquisition.

The acquisition builds on JLEN’s growing portfolio of four AD projects and brings the total capacity of the renewable energy assets in the JLEN investment portfolio to 274.2MW.