We hope that your new year has started off well and that you’re staying warm.  We’ve been hard at work networking with like-minded organizations and other co-operatives, making presentations to potential investors at numerous events, reaching out to members and friends, finalizing the Renewable Energy Approval application, setting up our educational programming, and planning for a very busy year.  The rewarding thing is, the more we get out there and talk to people like yourself, the more we learn and improve.  There is a lot of waste out there and a lot of impact to be made by turning it into biogas – we are so thankful to be developing the community-owned biogas market together with you.

Digest this!

A partnership long in development, ZooShare was very pleased to formalize its relationship with TREC Education this past month. Beginning in January, grade 7 students around the GTA will have the opportunity to experience the power of poo and the magic of biogas as our certified educators take them through a series of activities related to how digestion works, how biogas is produced, how it is stored and how it combusts.  The curriculum also includes a design challenge, where the students form small groups and create their own mini biogas plants.  Once our plant at the Zoo is up and running, a site visit and tour will become part of the lesson – giving students an up-close and personal look at how a biogas plant works and the true value of organic waste.

Additional Grant Funding

The Community Energy Partnerships Program was created by the Ontario Power Authority and the Ministry of Energy when the Green Energy Act was first launched.  Since that time the program has evolved into two grant funding streams – a pre-FIT Organizational Development grant and a Development and Approvals grant, once a FIT offer has been received.  We are very thankful to have received our third grant since 2011 from the CEPP program this past month.  Approximately $248,000 was awarded to our co-operative to assist with the cost of getting permits and approvals, project engineering, and Community Bond sales and marketing.

For more information about the CEPP program, please click here.

Bond sales update

Since launching in mid September, we are pleased to share the news that we now have 172 members and have raised $595,100 through the sale of Community Bonds.