VayuGrid Signs Agreement for Biofuel Zones in Zambia

BANGALORE, February 15, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

EEP-SEA Selects VayuSap™ Among 168 Other Projects for a Grant of Over $1 Million

India-based VayuGrid and Zambia-based BetterWorld Energy have inked an agreement to partner on VayuSap™ biofuel development zones in Zambia. The development zones, based on Elite VayuSap™ trees, will produce sustainable energy, local jobs, and reforest and rehabilitate degraded lands which will, in turn, raise living standards for the local communities and replace imports of petroleum fuels across the country.

The Energy and Environment Partnership in Southern and Eastern Africa (EEP-SEA), funded by the governments of Finland, Austria, UK, and hosted by the Development Bank of Southern Africa, recently selected the VayuSap™ project for a phase 1 grant as the only project out of 168 projects submitted in this sector in Zambia. The VayuSap™ project is based on a sustainable networked model to enable rural communities to plant VayuSap™ trees on degraded and deforested land, and to link these plantations to central commercial plantations and processing hubs.

"Over 70% of Zambia's energy needs currently come from forest biomass," said Dr. Benjamin Warr, Founder and Managing Director of BetterWorld Energy. "The VayuSap™ tree together with our development zone business model are excellent solutions to drastically turn-around the environmental degradation while reducing poverty and increasing energy access."

"Zambia is going through a dramatic transformation as the country looks at economic diversification," said Doug Peterson, CEO of VayuGrid. "Our partnership with BetterWorld Energy will address the needs of sustainable energy in an ROI based model to benefit all players in the value chain, including the rural communities, the energy consumers, and the government."

The phase 1 grant will lead to over $1M in grant funding, and serve as a pilot for expected over 20,000 acres of VayuSap™ biofuel development zones over the next 5 years.

About VayuGrid:

VayuGrid Marketplace Services Pvt. Ltd. is a Bangalore, India-based company focused on building biofuel supply chains around Elite Pongamia to address the challenge of predictability in the renewable fuel supply chain, from upstream plantation to midstream processing t o downstream markets. Its elite Pongamia planting material branded VayuSap™ is superior to "ordinary" Pongamia in precocity, yield, disease resistance and specific biochemical products of industrial value.

VayuGrid is focusing its efforts on building BioEnergy Plantations around VayuSap™ in markets such as Asia, Africa and the Middle East. www.vayugrid.com

About BetterWorld Energy:

BetterWorld Energy is a for-profit social enterprise working to develop context-dependent sustainable bioenergy business innovations that will:

1. provide sustainable renewable bioenergy to rural and peri-urban communities
2. rehabilitate and protect fragile, degraded and polluted soils
3. generate competitive ROI for socially responsible investors
4. increase income and the quality of life for producer-consumer communities

BetterWorld works to assist both business and communities to secure reliable access to domestically produced energy, to reduce GHG emissions, to reduce long-term energy costs and generate significant social capital value. The companies networked business is based on the principles of social value innovation (SVI) - where increased value to clients (private benefits) such as reduced costs and improvements in product-service quality are intimately and unavoidably linked to societal and environmental improvements (public benefits). The solutions involve multiple stakeholders and bring together partners from around the World to address local problems, to contribute to sustainable wealth creation.

Primary Media Contact: Latha Chandradeep, [email protected], 91-9886392770