2010 – The Second Quarter

The second quarter of 2010 was a time of great transition for me personally, as I left my full time job at RiskMetrics Group (now MSCI Inc.) to work on developing community-owned biogas plants across Ontario on a full time basis.

This was followed by the beginning of two new and exciting projects: A General Resource Assessment for the Peterborough Green Energy Co-operative, and evaluation services to the Toronto Zoo for a biogas plant in development there.  I’m expecting both projects to be complete by the end of Q3. Both illustrate a desire by the market for community-owned biogas.

Other highlights included:

  • The UpStart competition at MaRS, a business plan competition among the students of Entrepreneurship 101 at MaRS.
  • Ontario officially launched the Community Energy Partnership Program – a $200,000 grant available to community groups to fund the soft costs related to developing a power project.  Things like building a business case, contracting, technical studies, legal costs, and project management. It’s exactly the assistance many projects need to get from the idea phase to reality.

What I’ve been up to

  • Sustainable Leaders Exchange – a one-day conference mainly talking about B Corporations; what they are, the benefits of becoming certified, etc. 
    • The ‘B’ stands for benefit, as in to benefit all of the stakeholders involved – something ReGenerate is already thinking about in its approach, so you can bet that I will become a certified B Corp when I incorporate the company
  • Entrepreneurship 101 – The closing lectures of Entrepreneurship 101 included topics like building high performance teams, enterprise sales and building an effective pitch.  The course ended with the UpStart Competition, which took place May 5 at MaRS. 27 plans entered the competition in February, 12 made a 10-minute presentation on the final day, including ReGenerate.
    • I didn’t win, but the experience was invaluable. I improved my presentation skills and my understanding of the business. The course itself was also of great use to me – learning about all the areas of building a successful business from experts in the field, as well as from experienced entrepreneurs like Harry Rosen, Jed Emerson (Blended Value), Michael McCain (McCain Foods and Maple Leaf Foods), and Robert Deluce (Porter Airlines). As part of my pitch preparation, I met with Tom Rand, head of MaRS Cleantech Practice, Michael Curry, managing partner of Investeco, as well as my advisers John Nicholson and Alex Chamberlain, and got feedback on my strategy and ideas.
    • In addition, I connected with fellow entrepreneurs with cool projects under development, like Urban Farms Organic.
  • Being tax time, I met up with my accountant Dale Romanovsky to discuss the state of my business and to file my annual return.
  • The Community Power Finance Forum took place May 10 at MaRS.
    • Featuring experts from Europe and Ontario speaking about their experiences financing community power projects, it also marked the launch of the Community Energy Partnership Program, which will provide up to $200,000 in financial assistance to communities for pre-project development costs.  Up to $75,000 is available to help cover the costs of developing community-owned biogas plants up to 500 kW in size.
    • Thus far all of the applications received by the CEPP have been for solar projects.  After speaking with bioenergy rep Meghan McClennan, I got the impression they were eager to fund projects using other renewable sources, like biogas.
  • Transition Toronto (TTo) continued to grow and develop, as did my involvement in the Transition movement.
    • In mid-May, I attended Training for Transition at University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario. The 2-day workshop was attended by people from North Bruce Peninsula, Cambridge, Walkerton, Drummondville (Quebec), Dundas, Montreal (Quebec), North Bay, Windsor, Foxbury, Kitchener/Waterloo, Guelph, Newmarket, Southgate, Elgin County, Huron County, Durham, Prince Edward County and Victoria (BC). Transition’s emphasis on locally produced food and renewable energy (and it’s promotion of biogas as part of the solution) is the reason I got involved in the first place, but helping communities across Ontario prosper in the face of the challenges we face is the reason I increased my participation.
    • I have taken on the role of Treasurer with TTo, in addition to my seat on the steering committee.
  • Spoke with Chris Jarvis from 3BL Media a couple of times about how they could help me reach more people around the internet with my posts and ideas.
    • I wasn’t sure it made sense to spend the money on public and media relations just yet.  Chris is a friend, and I plan on hiring him when I feel I’m ready to grow to the next level.
  • Continue to meet with Elastic Mind on a semi-regular basis to make improvements to regeneratebiogas.com.
    • My online presence has earned me many compliments and helped to create valuable connections with potential customers and people from around the biogas and community power industry. I have Elastic Mind to thank for that.
  • I had a conversation with Eric Tucs from the Civics Research Co-operative about completing a General Resource Assessment of Wellington and Waterloo counties.
    • Eric is involved with the people from LIFE Co-op, who have received $40,000 from the Canadian Co-operative Association’s Ag-CDI program to study the feasibility of establishing a cluster of small (<100 kW) biogas installations on local farms in the Region of Waterloo.  We are not going to work together at the current time but have left the door open to do so at some point in the future.
  • Dave Ireland from the Toronto Zoo got in touch to discuss the biogas project in development at the Zoo, and to find out if I would be interested in helping out.
    • A public RFP was released via the City of Toronto website to design/build/own/operate a 3-5 MW biogas plant at the Zoo. The plant would accept around 2000 tons of animal and restaurant waste from the Zoo, as well as 10x that amount from organic waste producers around the City. There was a site meeting on June 3 and bids are due on July 27, 2010.
    • On June 26, 2010, I submitted a bid for a related RFP to provide evaluation services to the Zoo and to make a recommendation to the Board on which project proposal to ultimately select in the biogas RFP. I was awarded this contract and began working with Dave in early July.
  • In mid-June I traveled to Peterborough to meet with the Peterborough Green Energy Co-operative. Not yet incorporated, the group of green minded citizens from this city of 80,000 wanted to hear more about how community-owned biogas would work in Peterborough County.
    • I proposed that I would prepare a General Resource Assessment for them, to determine the total biogas potential and the optimal locations for community-owned biogas plants.  They expressed interest and the completed report will be delivered to them during Q3 2010.  The goal is identify a few potential projects to develop, and to apply to the CEPP for grant funding.
    • I also contributed an article about the opportunities for community-owned biogas in Ontario to Transition Town Peterborough’s quarterly GreenZine, which has readership of over 1,000 and is distributed free of charge around town.
  • I took a RETScreen introductory course at Centennial College during the quarter as well.
    • The financial modeling software, which works on top of Microsoft Excel, is extremely useful in determining the feasibility of renewable power and energy efficiency projects and completing a RETScreen analysis is a prerequisite to applying for CEPP funding.
  • Some other big news from the biogas industry was the closure of StormFisher Biogas in June.
    • I had talked about the GE/AES Corp acquisition of StormFisher in February, but after only a few short months, the new parent company decided to pull the plug and stop funding project development.  The company had 1 project in the very advanced stages of development and 3 more not too far behind, but without funding, had to close its doors and let the staff go.  StormFisher was an interesting story in Ontario as they were getting tons of positive press and raised a lot of awareness about the benefits of biogas. They blazed a trail for many other developers here and helped me to identify a niche market.

Mid-year Update on Goals for 2010

  • Establish a renewable energy co-op in Peterborough, raise funds through an offering statement and grant applications, complete biogas resource assessment of the region and make our first investment. I am currently working on a General Resource Assessment of Peterborough County on behalf of the Peterborough Green Energy Co-op.  The group is eager to make a visible impact investment with their first project and are interested in the potential of community biogas.  Depending on the outcome of the GRA, it seems likely that we will make the related grant applications to the CEPP. but an offering statement and fund raising won’t take place until the new year.
  • Make renewable energy co-operative presentation to 3 more Transition Towns, and begin preparing offering statements and grant applications (or possibly invite them to join the original Peterborough co-op?). Interest has been expressed by people in Barrie (Simcoe County) and Prince Edward County to hear more about investigating the community biogas potential of their counties. This makes me feel confident I will achieve the first part of this goal, but I strongly doubt any other offering statements will be prepared by year end – that would be some serious level jumping.
  • Sign partnership agreements with multiple regional waste management companies. No agreements have been signed to date, and I’m not sure one ever will be. Instead it appears likely that a working relationship will be established and individual waste supply contracts will be signed on as needed basis once biogas projects move further along the development life cycle.
  • Build more relationships with people of influence in the areas of agriculture and food production, community economic development, and renewable energy investing. This is going very well as a result of my website, attendance at industry conferences and participation in Transition Towns.
  • Take a second course of some kind… not sure yet, but maybe Spanish (spoiler alert! – a longer term goal is to develop community biogas projects in Central America). Entrepreneurship 101 is over, but I haven’t signed up for another course as of yet.
  • Write one blog post every two weeks, give or take a couple days. There’s no better way to spread the word than by putting it out there on a regular basis… I just have to get better about the regular basis thing… 10 posts since the beginning of the year – should be 13 if I posted once every two weeks, so not bad.

Looking Ahead

The 3rd quarter of 2010 has been exciting so far and very busy, which is great news for ReGenerate. My main focus will be on completing the GRA of Peterborough County and on evaluating the bids that come in for the biogas project at the Toronto Zoo.

The quarter started for me in Stratford, Ontario, where I completed Train the Trainers (for Transition) workshop.  Building off the Training for Transition which I took in May, this 4-day workshop was taught by two of the key people in Transition Town Totnes (the first one) and gave me the skills necessary to facilitate the 2-day course. I plan on using these new skills to further the mission of Transition Toronto, by training people across the city and teaching them more about Transition – with the hopes of sprouting multiple neighbourhood scale initiatives.  The course also introduced me to passionate people from Canada and the US who are now my peers and will be facilitating trainings across North America.

In addition, the AgriEnergy Producers Association of Ontario has expressed interest in hiring ReGenerate to complete a province wide GRA! Recognizing the benefit to the industry and to its own membership of such a document, the APAO has asked me to submit a formal proposal.

The Numbers (unaudited)

Apr – Jun 2010 Jan – Jun 2010
Revenue
 0 0
Expenses
General Admin 3,514 5,055
Travel & Accommodation 874 1,419
Rent and Utilities 895 1,795
Bank Interest 149 241
Marketing and Web 451 1,051
Memberships 0 100
Conferences & Training 1,362 2,083
Total Expenses 7,245 11,744
Net Profit (loss) (7,245) (11,744)