GE’s water business to acquire UK-based Monsal

UK AD & BIOGAS 2014 NEWS

GE expands wastewater offering and provides capabilities to generate renewable energy from biosolids and biowaste

• Monsal’s advanced anaerobic digestion and integrated biogas-to-energy business treats biosolids and biowaste and converts It to renewable resources
• Acquisition will reinforce GE’s position as a leader in the municipal and industrial wastewater treatment market
• Strengthens GE commitment to energy reduction and aspiration to build energy-neutral wastewater treatment plants

GE today announced that it has agreed to acquire Monsal, a private UK-based water, waste, advanced anaerobic digestion and integrated biogas-to-energy business.

With Monsal’s advanced anaerobic digestion technology and industry knowledge, GE will be able to help municipalities and industrial manufacturers shift from disposing wastewater treatment byproducts to generating renewable energy and other value from their streams. The acquisition of Monsal will enhance GE’s wastewater treatment product offerings and further GE’s commitment to energy reduction in wastewater treatment. GE will use its global reach, as well as commercial and execution capability, to take Monsal’s technology, integrate it with its own and proliferate it across the world.

Heiner Markhoff, president and CEO—water and process technologies for GE Power & Water said:

For many years, GE has been working to further the development of water reuse, wastewater and tough-to-treat water technologies. The acquisition of Monsal, with its advanced anaerobic digestion technology, will enable us to provide our customers with more energy-efficient options for water treatment solutions. Now our wastewater treatment solutions can be combined with new, advanced anaerobic digestion technologies to convert biosolids to renewable sources of energy for our customers.

Aidan Cumiskey, managing director, Monsal, said:

GE’s global expertise and reach in the municipal and industrial water treatment industry is world class and is very complementary to Monsal’s advanced digestion capabilities and our overall strategy for international expansion. Joining the GE family will allow Monsal to bring our technologies to a significantly broader audience as well as give us R&D capabilities at a much larger scale than we have now. We expect to expand our product and technology range with the GE resource, so that we become the ‘go-to’ company globally for anaerobic digestion.

Monsal, based in Mansfield, UK, provides advanced technology to treat biosolids and biowaste and convert it into renewable energy and saleable byproducts. Anaerobic digestion is a biological process in which microorganisms break down biodegradable material in the absence of oxygen. One of the end products is biogas, which can be combusted to generate electricity and heat – a feature that GE Power & Water’s Distributed Power business can achieve with Jenbacher gas engines.

Monsal is one of the UK.’s leading advanced anaerobic digestion and integrated biogas-to-energy businesses with over 200 installed anaerobic digestion systems. Monsal has particular expertise in optimizing anaerobic digestion assets to create strategic renewable energy centres for the water and waste markets.

GE Power & Water’s water and process technologies business is a leading global supplier of water treatment, wastewater treatment, water reuse and process systems solutions along with water treatment chemicals and process chemicals. The company provides proven technologies and solutions for water treatment and reuse and continues to invest heavily to enhance current products and to develop new, even more advanced technologies. GE supplies products and services that are used to optimize total water/process system performance, safeguard customer assets from corrosion, fouling and scaling and protect the environment through water and energy conservation. GE also offers a diverse selection of technologies for the global water treatment industry ranging from desalination to cooling water solutions, mobile water to petrochemical solutions and water recovery to boiler water solutions.