Kodak is set to sell its coal-fired power plant at Eastman Business Park to a company that will convert it to a cleaner, natural gas facility.
Illinois-based Recycled Energy Development - or R.E.D. - is an energy efficiency firm that works to harness waste energy to lower greenhouse gas emissions, as well as reducing power costs.
CEO of R.E.D. Sean Casten says the company plans to invest up to $80 million in the plant over the next 2 to 5 years.
He says there are, "tons of opportunities to take energy that we’re basically throwing away today, as a function of our manufacturing processes, not burn any additional fuel, but recover that energy."
"And now you’re displacing a fuel source somewhere else on the grid, recycling the energy, and you basically have a situation where at the margin it’s exactly the same as a solar panel, it’s just a lot less sexy,” he adds.
The sale is subject to approval by the U.S Bankruptcy Court, but if approved Kodak will be paid about $10 million in cash for the utility assets.
