California Ethanol + Power to build first sugarcane ethanol plant in North America

In California, California Ethanol and Power is planning to build a $650 million plant on a 160-acre parcel in the Imperial Valley that will be the first-ever ethanol plant in the U.S. that uses sugarcane as feedstock.

It’s part of a larger $1.1 billion project that also includes crafting agreements cumulatively worth more than $100 million with local Imperial Valley farmers to grow the sugar cane for the ethanol plant and an agreement with a major farming cooperative to market the ethanol once it’s produced.

Assuming the company obtains the financing it’s seeking for the project, it hopes to have the plant up and running by late 2025, producing about 68 million gallons of ethanol annually and, as byproducts, generating about 49 megawatts of electricity and roughly 740 million gallons of biomethane that can be transported through pipelines to ultimately heat businesses and homes.