KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 10): KNM Group Bhd has secured Chinese utility contractor China Western Power Industrial Co Ltd (CWPI) as the long-awaited financier for the first phase of its Green Energy Project power plant in Peterborough, UK.

The Chinese company was also awarded by KNM the engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning (EPCC) contract worth £346 million (RM1.9 billion) for Phase 1 of the biomass waste-to-energy plant, which will have a capacity of 36MW, double its initial planned capacity of 18MW.

This confirms the article in The Edge Financial Daily dated Oct 10, which reported that KNM will bring in a Chinese party as the financier and the EPCC contractor for the power plant without KNM relinquishing any of its 80% equity stake in the project, quoting sources.

Phase 1 is expected to commence in the first quarter of 2018 for a period of 37 months, said KNM chief executive officer Lee Swee Eng at the EPCC contract signing ceremony here today.

"The funding by CWPI will [be] payable by KNM in five years under a deferred payment scheme," said Lee. "Phase 1 will be completed in three years, giving us two years of operations beforehand," he added.

The Peterborough project — with total expected capacity of 80MW — is KNM's second renewable energy venture after the commissioning of its 200,000 liter-per-day bio-ethanol production plant in Thailand, following its strategy to shift from short-term contract-based income to long-term recurring income with renewable energy as a core business by 2019.

At noon market break, KNM fell 3.45% or 1 sen to28 sen with 31.86 million shares done.