New Energy Risk Back $260M Plastics-to-Fuel Plant with Innovative Insurance Solution
Breakthrough insurance program mitigates project risk and accelerates time to market
SAN FRANCISCO — April 22, 2019 — New Energy Risk, the leader in customized insurance solutions for renewable technology projects, has provided RES Polyflow, a leading plastics-to-fuel technology company, with a performance insurance program for its ground-breaking Ashley, Indiana plant. The project will be the United States’ first commercial-scale plastics-to-fuel project. Once completed, the facility will convert 100,000 tons of plastic into 18 million gallons of fuel and six million gallons of wax annually. By working with New Energy Risk (NER), RES Polyflow has reduced the overall cost of project capital, increased the certainty of execution, and made the bond offering more attractive to investors.
To finance this deployment, RES Polyflow and its parent development company, Brightmark Energy, raised an aggregate amount of $260 million, including $185 million in Indiana green bonds, underwritten by Goldman Sachs & Co. To streamline the financing, the companies approached NER, an affiliate of the global reinsurance group AXA XL, a division of AXA, to design a custom performance insurance policy that would mitigate technology risk for financiers interested in investing in this revolutionary project. NER used a systematic, data-driven approach to extensively assess the company’s technology, then developed an insurance product that covers the overall waste conversion process of the plant.
RES Polyflow’s plastics-to-fuel pyrolysis process sustainably recycles waste that has reached the end of its useful life — including items that cannot readily be recycled, like plastic film, flexible packing, Styrofoam, and children’s toys. The Indiana plant superheats and then converts plastic into ultra-low sulfur diesel and naphtha blend stocks, as well as commercial grade wax. In the future, the output could be turned back into plastic, creating the world’s first circular technology for plastics.
“New Energy Risk’s technology insurance solution was a critical factor in completing the financing for this project,” said Jay Schabel, President of Brightmark Energy’s plastics division and of RES Polyflow. “We have worked closely with New Energy Risk to assess the technical aspects of our project and design an innovative insurance solution. NER’s involvement successfully lowered our capital cost and served to raise bondholder interest in the project.”
“We’re proud to have supported Brightmark and RES Polyflow in their capital raise and are excited to see their leading plastics-to-fuel technology convert plastic waste into millions of gallons of low-carbon fuels,” said Tom Dickson, CEO of New Energy Risk. “Brightmark is leading the way in providing a technology solution to the world’s plastic waste problem, while replacing traditional fossil fuels in the process. We look forward to continue supporting their work in the years to come.”
This project is the latest in a string of industrial renewable projects New Energy Risk has supported. In total, NER has now supported $1.6B in renewable project financing, which will lead to over 500,000 tons of waste processed into 50M gallons of biofuel every year.
About New Energy Risk
New Energy Risk is a provider of performance risk solutions for breakthrough energy technologies and pioneer in the development of large-scale technology performance insurance. The company was founded in 2010 to provide complex risk assessment and serve as an effective bridge between technology innovators and insurers. Since then, New Energy Risk has helped its customers gain over $1.6 billion in financing for renewable energy and new technology deployments. To learn more, visit www.newenergyrisk.com.
About AXA XL
AXA XL, a division of AXA, provides insurance and risk management products and services for mid-sized companies through to large multinationals, and reinsurance solutions to insurance companies globally. We partner with those who move the world forward. To learn more, visit www.axaxl.com.
