WALNUT, Calif., April 14, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- VIASPACE Inc.
(OTC: VSPC) announced that Energia Reino Verde has signed an
agreement for the Engineering Procurement and Construction
Supervision of the 12 MW biomass power plant that will be
co-located with the 834 hectare (2,060 acre) Giant King®
Grass plantation project in Nicaragua. VIASPACE Inc. owns a 50% interest
in Energia Reino Verde (Green Kingdom Energy in English), the
special-purpose company that will own and operate the project. The
other 50% is owned by investors and executives of AGRICORP - a
large agribusiness company in Nicaragua.
The agreement was signed with a global Engineering, Procurement
and Construction (EPC) company that will provide the power plant
engineering and equipment, and guarantee the plant's performance.
The agreement provides technical specifications of all the power
plant equipment, price, and power plant performance guarantees. The
name of the company was not revealed. VIASPACE CEO, Dr.
Carl Kukkonen, who is also secretary
of Energia Reino Verde (ERV), and AGRICORP CEO, Mr. Amilcar Ybarra-Rojas, who is also president of
ERV, negotiated the 200+ page agreement during the last three
months. The agreement was signed in Managua, Nicaragua on April 7, 2015.
"We are very pleased to have concluded this agreement for the
power plant," stated ERV president, Amilcar
Ybarra-Rojas. "This is a crucial step in project completion.
We interviewed several potential contractors, and visited biomass
power plants that were under construction and others in operation.
The company we selected is very qualified and comes with the
highest recommendations from people we trust. Our Giant King Grass
biomass power plant will be an important renewable and clean source
of reliable base electricity for Nicaragua. It will complement the intermittent
wind electricity, and the seasonal sugarcane bagasse electricity
and hydroelectricity in our country. It will help reduce our
reliance on electricity generated from oil."
VIASPACE CEO, Dr. Carl Kukkonen,
reported, "We received substantial assistance in the proposal
evaluation and negotiations from the team at Pelican SA, which
conducted the formal feasibility study for the project, and from
experienced power plant operators in Nicaragua, and our attorneys. I want to thank
them all. Our EPC contractor was extremely knowledgeable and
professional in the negotiations, and we look forward to working
with them on this and other VIASPACE projects. They have the
technology and experience to rapidly build power plants that use
Giant King Grass to produce renewable, low carbon, reliable
electricity."
VIASPACE Chairman, Dr. Kevin
Schewe, commented, "Completing the EPC selection
process, along with the detailed negotiations and signing the
agreement has been a significant step forward to making the 12 MW
VIASPACE Giant King Grass fueled power plant a reality. We have
been very cost-conscious with the overall ERV project design and
have conducted this process in a way that we can replicate it again
in Nicaragua or elsewhere and
create 'economies of scale' for future projects."
Dr. Schewe concluded, "We have held meetings with several
reputable, international financing entities who have expressed a
strong interest in financing this project. We are moving forward to
make this our showcase renewable biomass power plant project."
About VIASPACE Inc.
VIASPACE grows renewable Giant
King® Grass as a low-carbon fuel for clean electricity
generation; for environmentally friendly energy pellets; and as a
feedstock for bio-methane production and for green cellulosic
biofuels, biochemicals and biomaterials. Giant King®
Grass is a proprietary, high yield, dedicated biomass energy crop.
Giant King® Grass when it is cut frequently at 4 to 5
feet tall is also excellent animal feed. The USDA granted approval
for planting Giant King® Grass throughout the US and
cooperates in exporting by performing the required inspections and
issuing the phytosanitary certificate needed for import into
foreign countries. Giant King® Grass is being grown in
California, Hawaii, St. Croix Virgin Islands, Nicaragua, South
Africa, China, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines and Guyana. For more
information, please go to www.VIASPACE.com or contact Dr.
Jan Vandersande, Director of
Communications, at 800-517-8050 or IR@VIASPACE.com.
Safe Harbor Statement
Information in
this news release includes forward-looking statements. These
forward-looking statements relate to future events or future
performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and
other factors that may cause our actual results, levels of
activity, performance or achievements to be materially different
from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking
statements. Such factors include, without limitation, risks
outlined in our periodic filings with the U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission, including Annual Report on Form 10-K for the
year ended December 31, 2013, and
other factors over which VIASPACE has little or no control.
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SOURCE VIASPACE Inc.