Project comment response – Greenville County Landfill

Project comment response

 

—Greenville County Landfill

 

 

All Terrapass projects undergo a public comment period while they are being evaluated for inclusion in our portfolio, so that the general public can provide feedback and ask questions. Below is Terrapass’ response to the comments received for the Greenville County SC Landfill Gas to Energy project in Greer, South Carolina.

 

We received two comments on the Greenville project, both supportive. One of these commenters noted, however, that it would be easier to evaluate the project if more complete financials were disclosed.

 

The substance of our reply to this second comment is copied here:

It is definitely easier to evaluate a project with complete financial information.  We gather such information for all of our projects, and make it available when we can.  In this case, the project’s financials have been verified by a third-party auditor and published.  You can find the (long) report that discusses the financials and other aspects of the project’s development motivation here: pdf

 
The short version is that the project was projected, without carbon offset revenues, to have an internal rate of return on its investment dollars of 6.7%.  While this sounds pretty good today compared to many investments, landfill gas projects carry inherent risk as the quantity of gas available is unknown.  Therefore the rate of return to attract investors for a project like this one typically needs to be above 10% (indeed may project investors look for payouts above 15%).