Optimal Renewable Gas appoints Macquarie Group’s Luca Febbraio as chief development officer

Optimal Renewable Gas (ORG) has today appointed Luca Febbraio as chief development officer.

Febbraio left his role as Macquarie Group’s director in the Specialised Asset & Finance team to join ORG and will be responsible for driving new business and originating deals in the renewable and waste sector.

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According to Craig Dugan, Optimal CEO, “[Febbraio’s] strong commercial and financing background will be key to our completing the necessary agreements to secure our business, and he will also strongly engage with future partners as we continue to develop our renewable gas portfolio. With ten plants to be constructed Luca will be a key driver of the Optimal Renewable Gas business.”

Febbraio will also step into the role of head of hydrogen business development for Optimal, with a focus on further expansion of the hydrogen business.

His responsibilities will include strategic partnerships, business development and commercialization of Optimal’s hydrogen solutions, including ITM Power Elextrolysers, Capstone Hydrogen MicroTurbines and Fuel Cells.

“As the hydrogen market in Australia rapidly develops it is vital that Optimal provides our customers with the strongest possible commercial and technical support to get their projects underway. Luca’s experience in large scale renewable energy projects and green hydrogen technologies will ensure he is well placed to meet our customers’ needs,” Dugan said.

According to Dugal, for a number of Optimal industrial customers, natural gas makes up more than 60 per cent of their total energy requirements, and part of Febbraio’s remit will be to engage with customers in the renewable gas supply chain to ensure their energy needs are met.

“For many, the electrical grid simply does not have the capacity to replace this with electricity and hence renewable gas provides an immediate pathway to net zero.”

Febbraio’s experiences spans 35 years in corporate and business development in energy and infrastructure. He is currently an independent non-executive director for blockchain platform TYMLEZ, and the founder and CEO of Zero CO2, an organisation helping businesses to decarbonise their operations and products.

Optimal’s current focus is to develop ten grid scale biogas projects within the next ten years, that include a mix of both Biogas to grid and Biogas to LNG.
“Our customers are urgently seeking a solution to their thermal energy requirements and biogas offers them with a commercially and technically proven alternative which solving Australia’s need to divert putrescible was from landfill,” Dugan said.