Maine
Biomass company with plants in Maine files for bankruptcy
An organization that owns biomass electrical energy vegetation in West Enfield and Jonesboro and had entry to thousands and thousands in state subsidies to assist it keep afloat has filed for chapter, stating it owes $17.8 million to collectors together with an vitality market investor, the states of Maine and New Hampshire, and Maine loggers.
Saved Photo voltaic LLC and all however one among its subsidiaries filed for Chapter 11 chapter safety in September in U.S. Chapter Court docket in Bangor. Chapter 11 of the chapter code gives a method for corporations to reorganize their operations.
The submitting comes six years after Maine lawmakers handed a $13 million bailout of the state’s biomass trade, which makes use of waste wooden to supply electrical energy, with the purpose of preserving electrical vegetation and logging jobs.
Saved Photo voltaic was one among two corporations to learn from the subsidy package deal, which used taxpayer {dollars} to ensure biomass producers above-market costs for his or her electrical energy. However the firm, which purchased the West Enfield and Jonesboro vegetation in 2016 after earlier proprietor Covanta shut them down, solely ran the vegetation intermittently following the bailout’s passage.
The West Enfield plant hasn’t produced energy since December 2020 whereas the Jonesboro plant final produced energy earlier this yr, in June, in keeping with data from the U.S. Power Data Administration.
Months into its restart efforts in West Enfield and Jonesboro, a commerce affiliation representing Maine loggers, the Skilled Logging Contractors of Maine, alleged a few of its members supplying Saved Photo voltaic weren’t being paid.
The corporate stated in late March 2017 that it had paid the loggers and settled what it known as an “invoicing dispute.” However Dana Doran, govt director of the Skilled Logging Contractors of Maine, stated this week that Saved Photo voltaic nonetheless has not repaid these money owed.
Additionally in 2017, the corporate unveiled plans to open a shrimp farm at its West Enfield headquarters with the assistance of taxpayer loans.
Saved Photo voltaic is owned by husband and spouse William Harrington and Fahim Samaha, and is a subsidiary of Capergy US, which Harrington and Samaha additionally personal. Along with Maine, Saved Photo voltaic has biomass vegetation in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Vermont, and it lists West Enfield as its headquarters.
All the firm’s places apart from its facility in Ryegate, Vermont, are hooked up to its chapter submitting.
“Saved Photo voltaic’s goal is to see that every one of its collectors are paid in full, on the earliest potential time,” stated its Portland lawyer, George Marcus. “The corporate believes that it has a viable and achievable pathway to result in that outcome.”
Marcus stated the corporate intends to current that plan at a Friday listening to in chapter court docket.
That Friday listening to can be held to find out if the corporate’s chapter ought to change from a Chapter 11 to a Chapter 7 case. Chapter 7 bankruptcies present for liquidation of an organization’s belongings to repay money owed.
In its chapter submitting, Saved Photo voltaic listed 9 collectors whose claims are secured by firm property, and one other 375 collectors who don’t have secured claims.
The collectors with secured claims in opposition to the corporate are prioritized for compensation in chapter proceedings.
The collectors with unsecured claims embody a variety of entities, together with loggers; the Maine Division of Environmental Safety, to which the corporate owes allowing charges; cellphone service suppliers; and each the state of Maine and New Hampshire for bills together with unpaid taxes.
The corporate’s largest secured creditor, New York-based Hartree Companions, is owed $8.9 million, in keeping with court docket paperwork.