COMMERCIAL operations have officially started at a biomass plant in Speyside that is generating electricity for the national grid and producing liquid animal feed from the by-products of whisky distilling.

Successful reliability and performance trials have taken place at the Helius CoRDe plant in Rothes, a joint venture between renewables specialist Helius Energy, the Combination of Rothes Distillers (Cord) and Rabo Project Equity BV, a division of Netherlands-based Rabobank that specialises in backing renewable projects.

Completion of the plant comes eight years after the project, which cost £60.5 million to develop and construct, was first conceived.

The plant, which will be accredited as a combined heat and power plant under Renewables Obligation legislation, will generate enough electricity to power 9000 homes and create liquid animal feed product or pot ale syrup for agriculture.

Helius, whose main shareholders include land owner Alastair Salvesen, who holds a 25.79% stake, Angus MacDonald and family (17.7%) and Stagecoach co-founder Ann Gloag (9.78%), said it would save about 46,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, compared with a coal-fired facility of similar size. It also expects to reduce a further 18,000 tonnes of CO2 a year by closing the existing gas-fired Cord facility at the same site.

Helius also said the performance trial, held to ensure the plant performed in line with the owners' expectations, saw the plant achieve a gross power output of 8.4 mega watts of electrical energy and 73.2 tonnes per hour of pot ale through the evaporator plant.

Three contracts were awarded by Helius CoRDe for the plant's construction, which took two years to complete. Danish firm Aalborg Energie Technik worked on the combined heat and energy technology, Midlands-based Wellman Group constructed the evaporator plant, and the ground works were handled by Elgin-based Robertson Construction.

The venture will generate revenues from index-linked gate fees received for processing distillery residues, electricity sales and sales relating to the plant's Renewables Obligation Certificate (ROC). Income will also flow from the sale of pot or Spey ale syrup to the animal feed market, largely throughout the UK.

CoRDE stating it will pursue further revenue opportunities from processing distillery by-products, which will focus on the energy and animal feed sectors.

The plant, which employs 22 staff in a town of 1500 people, has been supplying the grid over the course of its commissioning phase in recent months.

Frank Burns, the managing director of Helius CoRDe, said the project's eight-year gestation period had largely been spent meeting the technical challenges involved and ensuring the risk was minimised for the seven distillery partners.

He said the project was a first for the distilling companies involved, which include Edrington, Diageo, Chivas Brothers, Glen Grant, Inver House, BenRiach and John Dewar & Sons.

Mr Burns said: "They [the distillers] all have their own strategic intent, but have come together to achieve economy of scale. It is quite unique in that sense and I would say it is unique in the sense that the output is to produce electricity for the national grid, whereas a lot of the smaller scale renewable technologies being used in distilling at the moment are really just for their own operations if you like. They are producing heat for their own distilleries whereas we have the intent of producing a maximum amount of energy for the grid."

He was unable to say how much the distillers had invested but revealed that each has taken a small equity stake.

Meanwhile, Helius chief executive Adrian Bowles said the firm hoped to finalise funding for its 100MW biomass plant at Avomouth, Bristol, "later in the financial year".

Helius is also aiming to develop a similar scheme in Southampton at a docklands site in the city.

Shares in Helius Energy closed unchanged at 9.625p.