Development organisation Solidaridad and Dutch energy company Essent have introduced a new form of biomass using coffee husks as raw material. The coffee husks are a residual product from Brazilian coffee cultivation and suitable for replacing coal or other fossil fuels to produce electricity in some of Essent's power stations. Using coffee husks as fuel to generate green electricity is a world first, says the company. Early calculations of output, says Essent, show that with this innovation it will very soon be possible to achieve a CO2 reduction of at least 90 per cent, compared to an average Dutch power station.

The certified coffee companies that supply the raw material work with respect for people and the environment. The coffee harvest in Brazil produces the coffee husks that are compressed to pellets. At the end of this year, the entire production (c. 5.000 tonnes) from this first year, will be used in The Netherlands to generate green electricity at Essent's Amer power station in Geertruidenberg. If the whole process is successful, there will be a second load of about 20,000 tonnes. In Brazil there is a potential of 150,000 to 200,000 tonnes of coffee husk pellets available on an annual basis. This is sufficient to provide more than 100,000 households with green electricity for a year.

Essent is keen to stress that the coffee husk is not edible, there is no competition with the food or animal feed chains. It is a residual product with a value of about five per cent of the main product. The new market is not expected to cause any expansion of this cultivation and there will not be any additional pressure on nature and small farmers. The coffee farmers involved are all certified in accordance with the standards of Utz Certified and/or Rainforest Alliance. They now have an extra income thanks to the sale of coffee husks.

The Doen Foundation is supporting the project because it is making a positive contribution to solving the climate problem.