Our team is working across the globe as a leading biomass energy developer to assess, select, develop, execute and operate projects that contribute to our goal of a sustainable future.
International WoodFuels, LLC was founded by Steve Mueller in 2007. His experience in building multiple independent power projects in the US and Europe at two prior companies he founded brings deep and established relationships as well as an intimate knowledge of the contracting culture with the electric and heat utility markets in the US and EU.
Prior to forming the Company, Steve founded and ran an IPP business with industrial gas cogeneration plants, biomass electricity facilities and district heating/cooling systems throughout the US which he subsequently sold to an international firm. While there he identified the key constraints and bottlenecks preventing the acquisition of a predictable renewable solid fuel supply, i.e., highly fragmented upstream and midstream nodes in the overall supply chain. Today, WoodFuels has an organizational culture and structure built from lessons learned. The organization is designed to scale in proportion to the build-out of its platform utilizing models and experience from previous companies.
The Managing Director of the WoodFuels Europe team, Niel Barnard has over 25 years of experience in the industry including a number of managing, executive and non-executive directorships in the forest products and related sectors in South Africa, the UK and Europe and a stint as senior VP market and business development at Jaakko Poyry consulting. He has had extensive transactional and investment experience in forest products and bioenergy. He is currently CEO of Ceres BIO Ventures Limited, a business accelerator operating as part of an international network of industry partners specializing in bioenergy from wood-based biomass and providing end-to-end solutions for the creation and use of tradable carbon certificates based on carbon sequestration or mitigation.
The founding management of WoodFuels has initiated and managed hundreds of long term energy sales agreements representing over 1,000MW (electricity), 1,250 mmbtu (heating), and 50,000 tons (cooling) of energy capacity provided to hundreds of customers worldwide.
In addition, the management team bring a depth of experience in forestry, forest products, renewable energy, project management and finance. They have worked together in various forms in the past and in WoodFuels bring together for the first time their collective and complementary skills to capitalize on the growth of the American and European biomass markets.