Co-Digestion business case


Client: Isle Utilities
Location:  London and Durham, UK
Service Offering: Consultancy – technical & commercial evaluation
Sector: Water; Waste; Energy; Power


Isle Utilities (Isle) is a niche consultancy with a core focus around technology and innovation who work with many water companies, novel technology providers and investors to bring new technologies to market. Isle were commissioned by Northumbrian Water (NWL) to assist in informing their co-digestion strategy and AFECO were subsequently commissioned to assist with the delivery of the project.
The work consisted of the following key areas:

  • An overview of the financial and commercial structures available and the potential sources of funding for any projects the impact of regulatory accounting, marginal costs, revenues and a breakdown of the commercial structures available
  • Production of a financial and technical model including high level capex and opex estimates
  • SWOT analysis covering legislative, regulatory, commercial, organisation and operational issues throughout the project lifecycle

AFECO fed directly into each area of the project but in particular composed the technical model used to evaluate the existing asset capacity, additional asset capacity requirements and the potential inputs and outputs of the process. In addition to the technical model, AFECO prepared the high level capex and opex estimates required to inform the financial model and prepared the SWOT analysis, assessing the risks associated with regulation, feedstock security, operating risks and impacts on the existing business. The project outputs were presented directly to NWL through a series of meetings as well as in a final report.