Celtic Renewables has won an £11 million grant from the UK Department for Transport (DfT) to build the world’s first plant dedicated to produced biofuel from whisky by-products.

The Edinburgh-based company, a spin-out company from the Biofuel Research Centre (BfRC) at Edinburgh Napier University, is one of three advanced biofuel producers to share in a £25 million funding pot.

The winners were announced yesterday by UK transport minister Andrew Jones at Celtic Renewables’ headquarters.

Mr Jones said: “I am delighted to announce that Celtic Renewables is one of three winners of the DfT’s Advanced Biofuels Demonstration competition.

“The point of the competition was to reward companies that take low value waste and use their intellectual meat to create something of high value which also contributes to low carbon development, manufacturing and science.

“There is no better demonstration of this than Celtic Renewables’ great ideas and this money will help them to put those into practice. It’s a fantastic story that fits perfectly with our aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and decarbonising transport.”

The firm has spent the last 18 months developing its process as part of a £1 million programme funded by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) under its Energy Entrepreneurs Fund.

Professor Martin Tangney, the company’s founder and president, said: “We are committed to developing a new industry right here in the UK that will be worth more than £100 million-a-year and it starts here.

“We have already attracted investment and partners in the private sector and this funding announced today will allow us to scale-up to industrial production.

“Our next step is to open a demonstration facility and we are targeting a location in or near Grangemouth which is an area that’s strategically right for us.”