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Purpose Energy to Build New $18m Biogas Plant in Vermont for Ben & Jerry’s

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St. Albans, Vermont, May 23, 2023  PurposeEnergy is proud to announce its commitment to build a new biogas processing plant in partnership with Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. The Saint Albans Industrial Treatment Center (“SAINT”) is a new biogas project designed to produce renewable energy through the responsible treatment of organic waste produced from food and beverage manufacturing. The project is located in St. Albans, Vermont and will serve a collection of Northern Vermont and Upstate New York-based food and beverage producers, including Unilever’s Ben & Jerry’s plant in St. Albans, which will be piped directly to the SAINT biogas plant.

This latest project is an extension of the partnership struck between Ben & Jerry’s and PurposeEnergy over 5 years ago at the PurposeEnergy biogas facility in South Burlington, VT.

“Working on climate justice initiatives is an effort that requires all businesses like Ben & Jerry’s to step up and play a part if we truly want to implement impactful and meaningful change,” said Jenna Evans, Global Sustainability Manager at Ben & Jerry’s. “Today begins a new chapter breaking ground on this anaerobic digester adjacent to our St. Albans location. This project is crucial in furthering our commitment to our environmental and sustainability goals,” added Evans.

Other local companies that will benefit from the SAINT project include Casella Waste Systems, which will bring de-packaged organic waste to the project, Richard I. Green Trucking, a transportation company that delivers chocolate for Barry Callebaut, and Wind River Environmental, a hauler of restaurant grease trap and septic waste.

SAINT provides both an economically compelling and long-term sustainability solution for organic waste treatment and carbon reduction for key businesses operating within the local community. The project will reduce the load on local landfills and wastewater treatment systems, while also producing renewable energy for the local power grid that will benefit the surrounding community. When fully operational, SAINT will treat up to 50,000 gallons per day of food waste and wastewater, converting over 90% of the organic content into renewable biogas. In addition, the project will employ an average of 25 people on site during the approximately one-year construction period. Once operational, SAINT will employ 5 people locally and generate additional ancillary jobs in the region.

SAINT is the first new project to be committed by PurposeEnergy, after announcing the acquisition of the firm by Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners in March of this year. PurposeEnergy has one other project under active construction in Middlebury, VT, and a pipeline of additional projects in mid-to-late-stage development.

About PurposeEnergy

PurposeEnergy is an established US-based renewable fuels and biogas specialist focused on waste solutions for the food and beverage industries. Over the last 15 years, PurposeEnergy has developed, owned, and operated multiple projects that convert organic waste streams to biogas for use in industrial processes, conversion to renewable electricity, or refinement to Renewable Natural Gas (“RNG”). PurposeEnergy is a portfolio company of Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners.

About Quinbrook

Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners is a specialist investment manager focused exclusively on the infrastructure needed to drive the energy transition in the UK, US, and Australia. Quinbrook is led and managed by a senior team of power industry professionals who have collectively invested c.USD 8.2 billion of equity in energy infrastructure assets since the early 1990s, representing a total enterprise value of c.USD 28.7 billion and 19.5 GW of power supply capacity. Quinbrook has completed a diverse range of direct investments in both utility and distributed scale onshore wind and solar power, battery storage, reserve peaking capacity, biomass, fugitive methane recovery, hydro and flexible energy management solutions in the UK, US, and Australia. Quinbrook is currently developing and constructing some of the largest renewables and storage infrastructure projects ever undertaken in the UK, US, and Australia.

For more information, please contact:

Sean O’Neill
oneill@purposeenergy.com
(917) 776-6155

Todd Hasselbeck
Todd.hasselbeck@purposeenergy.com
(978) 314-3012

PurposeEnergy LLC
P.O. Box 4345 Windham, NH 03087
(844) DIGESTER

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Hasper Kuno

Technical Sales Executive

It wasn’t long after returning from a six-month stint in Denmark, working with renewable energy systems, that Hasper found himself in South Burlington, Vermont, helping PurposeEnergy with their revolutionary anaerobic digestion technology. Fast forward ten years and Hasper has become an instrumental part of the team at PurposeEnergy. After building an impressive skill set as PurposeEnergy’s Chief Operator and Operations Manager in Vermont – including the GMWEA 2017 Industrial Wastewater Operator of the Year Award – Hasper has most recently transitioned to business development and feedstock origination. His hands-on experience and unique technical understanding of industrial systems allows Hasper to bring value in assisting new partners, process design, startup, commercialization, and the trouble shooting of treatment systems.

 

A graduate of St. Lawrence University in Upstate New York, Hasper enjoys the great outdoors, playing ice hockey year-round, and spending time with family and friends.

Sean O’Neill

Vice President, Development & Offtake

In the energy world, Sean O’Neill has covered a lot of territory.  He designed and ran energy efficiency programs for large residential and commercial buildings in New York City, closed some of the most innovative financings for energy system retrofits in both public and private property, led development of cogeneration plants and solar projects, and developed large greenhouses in an effort to reduce emissions from agriculture.  Along the way he has advised city and state governments, universities, and leading environmental non-profits.  On a pro bono basis, he helps bring solar power to public and private schools by turning conventional lenders into investors.

When he is not developing energy projects, O’Neill plays a leading role in creating policies that promote a cleaner planet.  He founded the Investor Confidence Project, now part of the US Green Buildings Council, and co-founded the Green Lease Forum with the Natural Resources Defense Council.  He lives on a small farm in Massachusetts with his horse whisperer wife, sundry animals and too many chores.

Todd Hasselbeck

VICE PRESIDENT, WORLDWIDE SALES

With a decade of experience converting food byproducts to energy, Todd had led the company’s acquisition of new projects from its first system to our current nationwide footprint. Prior to that, he spent 2 years in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park leading the park’s restoration for a US based NGO. He was selected as a Clean Energy Fellow by the New England Clean Energy Council. Prior to his work in the renewable energy industry, Todd helped to build a string of early-stage companies in the communications industry including; Common Voices, Summa Four (merged with Cisco Systems) and Boston Technology.

A graduate of Cornell University, Todd is at the helm of PurposeEnergy’s worldwide sales organization (did we mention he has built several worldwide sales organizations in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe?) His is focused on identifying prospective feedstock partners across the food and beverage industry, and managing the PurposeEnergy sales team.

Jason Bond

Vice President, Operations

With over 20 years of experience in operations and maintenance management, spanning a wide range of heavy industrial equipment. Jason has focused the last 14 years on renewable energy, where he has commissioned and operated several CNG/RNG facilities along with developing/coaching a variety of operations and maintenance teams. Jason brings vast knowledge and experience to the operations group. He joined PurposeEnergy in 2023 with a vision to build a safety-focused world-class organization.

Jason holds a vocational degree in Heavy Equipment/Diesel Mechanics from Hibbing Technical College, a BS in Business Management with an emphasis on Analysis, and an MBA from Rassmussen University. When he isn’t traveling to job sites or meeting with customers, Jason can be found at home with his beautiful multilingual wife and family.

David O’Keefe

CHIEF SCIENTIST

Our Chief Scientist, Dr. David O’Keefe, has had a long career in the interface of the fields of soil science, solid waste and wastewater treatment, and agronomy. His lengthy list of accomplishments includes the successful application of anaerobic digestion and aerobic composting systems in the treatment of solid and liquid waste. In addition, he has developed and patented technology for biological nutrient removal from agricultural and industrial wastewater. His work involves process design, startup, commercialization, and the trouble shooting of treatment systems.

Dr. O’Keefe’s experience as a scientist and microbiologist encompasses commercial work as well as basic and applied research. To date, he has published over thirty articles and book chapters. Dr. O’Keefe is also the inventor of the Biphase Orbicular Bioreactor and holds patents in the field of anaerobic digestion and biological, wastewater treatment. He is an avid sportsman and once played guitar in Bo Diddley’s band.

Jim Banks

Chief Technology Officer

The integration of downstream process technologies with Purpose Energy’s Tribrid-Bioreactor™ is the latest engineering passion of our CTO, Jim Banks.  Earlier in his professional career, Jim had leveraged his engineering and process facility construction experience into the founding of Integrated Process Technologies, Inc. an INC 500 / INC 5000 company for 2006, 2007, & 2008. This process engineering and high-purity process piping contracting company specialized in delivering fully-integrated process systems on a turnkey basis. In this capacity, Fitch and Jim were introduced and Purpose Energy became another satisfied Customer.  After selling his company, Jim held the VP of Applications and Engineering position for a ceramic nanofiltration startup whereby they teamed with Purpose Energy in piloting advanced tertiary treatment technologies for their projects. Just prior to joining PurposeEnergy, Jim worked in a consulting capacity with a leading supplier of bioprocess equipment to further “productize” their product portfolio through improved process / automation which included scalable enterprise-level solutions.

Outside of work Jim enjoys golf and being a novice farmer. When asked about his hobbies, Jim replied, “It’s tough work, but you get to solve lots of small problems each day.”

Erik Lallum

CHIEF DEVELOPMENT OFFICER

Erik Lallum has over 20 years’ experience building and leading clean energy focused organizations in project development, engineering, construction, and operations. Throughout his career, Erik has developed strategies and delivered results for companies experiencing unprecedented growth. Two notable career achievements include:

  • Creating and implementing a $600M+ fast-track capital project program that launched the national expansion of a high-tech hydroponic produce supply company.
  • Transforming a small energy developer to one of the largest in the US by successfully delivering over $11B (5000MW+) of wind and solar energy projects.

Scaling an asset-based business is extremely challenging and Erik leverages his positive attitude, excellent listening skills, and humor to energize and motivate highly capable teams to deliver results. “I do this hard work because I am energized by working with world-class people, I enjoy solving complex business and technical problems, and find satisfaction in building infrastructures that make a difference.”    

Erik holds a BS in Civil Engineering from Montana State University, a professional engineering registration certificate in Washington and an MBA with a certificate in Technology and Innovation Management from Pacific Lutheran University.

When he is not flying to projects or meeting with customers, Erik enjoys the outdoors with his family, fishing, mountain biking, and a relaxing round of golf now and then.

Eric Fitch

FOUNDER & CEO

Founder & CEO Eric Fitch is our visionary leader who first imagined and then built a better solution for treating the organic waste produced by beverage and food manufacturing processes. His passion for technology (fine-tuned during his education at MIT), his love for the environment, and his years spent helping to launch a number of successful start-ups (biotech, clean tech, photonics, consumer electronics) inspired Fitch to establish PurposeEnergy and start “Saving the Earth. One beer at a time™” (Purpose Energy’s original tagline).

As the company’s leader, Eric is focused on strategic development, operations, and sales and is personally involved in every engagement and installation. When he is not traveling the country, visiting customers, touring production plants, conducting a Blitz Engineering Study or wastewater audit, and overseeing the installation of bioreactors, he can be found at home in Windham, NH with his brilliant and beautiful wife and family.

As the company’s leader, Eric is focused on strategic development, operations, and sales and is personally involved in every engagement and installation. When he is not traveling the country, visiting customers, touring production plants, conducting a Blitz Engineering Study or wastewater audit, and overseeing the installation of bioreactors, he can be found at home in Windham, NH with his brilliant and beautiful wife and family.