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.
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.”
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.
