As Scotland’s considers an EfW ‘moratorium’ EWB considers if it stack up against potential capacity
Scotland has announced plans that could see the country follow Wales’s lead and introduce a moratorium on energy from waste (EfW), despite figures showing that the technology has helped to divert waste from landfill and export.
Scotland has been a success in recent years as it invested heavily in EfW, adding four new facilities in 2019 alone.
Two years ago, waste company Viridor built facilities in Glasgow and Dunbar, which can process 200,000t/yr and 300,000t/yr respectively.
Also in 2019, FCC opened the 135,000t/yr Millerhill plant, while the same year also saw Levenseat open the first phase of its EfW plant, which can process 250,000t/yr of waste. The project could eventually process up to 750,000t/yr.
Before 2019, there were two operational EfW plants in Scotland, one is the Lerwick facility owned by Shetland Council, which processes about 22,000t/yr, and the other is in Dundee. The Dundee plant is due to be replaced by a new one being developed by MVV, which will process about 110,000t/yr. However, this plant has missed several deadlines and MVV did not respond when EWB asked for an update on the project.
Figures from environmental watchdog the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) show that the EfW plants have reduced the amount of the country’s waste going to landfill. With a report showing that in 2019 Scotland sent less than 1Mt to landfill for the first time.
The total amount of household waste generated in Scotland was 2.4Mt in 2019, an increase of 17,000 tonnes (1%) from 2018. In 2019, 760,000t was landfilled, a reduction of 273,000t (26%) from 2018 and a reduction of 696,000t (48%) since 2011.
Also in 2019, the total amount of Scottish household waste “managed by other diversion from landfill” was 577,000t, an increase of 278,000t (93%) from 2018. Most of the diverted waste in 2019 was managed by EfW (79%) – a success most would argue.
At the same time the Scottish household waste recycling rate was 44.9%, a slight increase from the 44.7% rate achieved in 2018. The amount of household waste recycled between 2018 and 2019 increased by 12,000t to 1.1Mt.
Two other facilities are due to go into operation next year: the 150,000t/yr NESS project in Aberdeen and the 216,000t/yr Earls Gate facility, which developer Brockwell Energy confirmed to EWB in October is due to start taking waste next autumn.
However, while the new plants will add 366,000t/yr of capacity, based on the 2019 figures that still means 394,000t would be heading for landfill or exported for energy recovery abroad.
Only last month, financial close was also reached on construction of the Oldhall EfW project, which will eventually process 185,600t/yr when it is operational. The project was already fully consented. Again using 2019, figures that would still leave 208,400t/yr going to landfill.
There is another EfW plant consented in the pipeline Aberdeenshire Council gave planning consent earlier this year to a 35MWe facility on the site of a redundant paper mill in Inverurie, Aberdeen, which is being developed by Agile Energy. It will bring another 240,000t/yr of capacity to Scotland, when it is operational which would take up all the remaining capacity.
As a result, the projects for which a moratorium would cause the most concern is a third Scottish EfW plant being developed by Viridor in Overwood. The company only announced plans for the facility earlier this year. And Scottish waste firm Barr which also lodged plans for a new EfW facility over the summer, which could also be hit by the review.
Viridor’s plant would process 330,000t/yr and Barr’s would take 166,000t/yr, totalling 496,000t, which is more than double the remaining 208,400t.
As Scotland's household waste only increased by 17,000t between 2018 and 2019, and even factoring in home-working, figures are unlikely to increase so significantly that the pipeline plants would be needed.
However, that is of course not factoring in any commercial or industrial waste, which also needs to be dealt with.
Policy update
CIWM president and external affairs director at Suez Recycling and Recovery UK, Dr Adam Read, called on the EfW sector to make sure it puts the U in CCUS, saying that not everybody in the sector has got new initiatives right. “We shouldn’t be parking issues such as this. There’s lots of industrial options to move the carbon back where the carbon needs to be. This gives the opportunity of making some EfW facilities net positive and that’s the golden ticket,” Dr Read told EWB in his role as part of the news service’s Editorial Panel.
EfW plant owners Fortum Oslo Varme and Amager Ressourcecenter (ARC) failed to gain support for their respective CCS projects from the EU Innovation Fund. The high-profile project at the Klemetsrud EfW plant near Oslo and the Ski slope-equipped Amager Bakke in Copenhagen were not among the seven projects that received backing in November. The projects are considering applying for a second round of funding due to be decided next year.
In a related story, Sweden-based utility company Stockholm Exergi celebrated the success of its EU Innovation bid. The company said securing funding would allow it to finance and build a full-scale BECCS system at its KVV8 biopower plant in Stockholm, which is planned to open in 2025.The BECCS system will have a separation capacity of almost 800,000t/yr of CO2. However, the project still needs to secure Swedish state aid, which is planned to be determined next year through a “reverse auction”.
The European Commission said it would take Romania back to the Court of Justice of the European Union for failing to meet its obligations under the Landfill Directive. The commission states Romania failed to fully comply with a court judgment of 18 October 2018, which found it failed to meet its obligations. According to that judgment, by 16 July 2009 Romania was obliged to close and rehabilitate all landfills that did not obtain a permit to operate. However, the court found that 68 of Romania’s landfills had failed to comply with this obligation.
The EU executive wants to ensure Europe deals with its own rubbish, rather than allowing exports to countries that often lack the capacity to deal with it sustainably. The EC published its proposals for a new regulation on waste shipments, which as the overarching aim to “boost the circular economy and ensure EU waste stops polluting third countries”. However, trade body ESWET warned that “unnecessary obstacles” to intra-EU shipments of waste could disrupt national waste management chains.
Market update
Dutch waste management firm AVR emerged as a “preferred bidder” for rival EfW plant owner and operator AEB Amsterdam. EWB understands there are three bidders in the running with AVR leading the field currently. AEB ran into trouble in 2019 after issues with its facilities, which eventually required a bailout from the city of Amsterdam.
Concerns were raised of a “total whitewash” after two local authorities held a secret vote where they both confirmed at least several more months of work would be carried out on a failed EfW plant. The votes, held by the city and county councils of Derby, were the latest development in the pair’s waste-gasification facility, which was meant to be operational in 2019, but is currently mothballed.
Enfinium, which was renamed from Wheelabrator earlier this year, confirmed that its current chief executive officer, Julia Watsford, “has decided to leave the company”. Watsford, who will “pursue other opportunities” is to be replaced by Mike Maudsley on 4 January. Maudsley joins Enfinium, most recently from Drax, where he was the group operations director.
N+P Group revealed it has signed a binding agreement to acquire a lightweight packaging sorting plant in Rotterdam from PreZero Netherlands. N+P’s also said further acquisitions could be on the cards, stating it was “actively pursuing further acquisition opportunities in the European market”. Its new plant sorts about 110,000t/yr of packaging, making it one of the largest such facilities in the Netherlands. The deal has “significant synergies... between the existing operations and Subcoal, N+P’s patented waste derived alternative fuel”.
Logistics giant DHL Freight reported that its testing of bio-liquified natural gas (bioLNG) has shown initial promising results in Germany. DHL said oil-giant Shell had been supplying bioLNG for use in three trucks, which the logistics firm had been running with pump-supplier Grundfos in France. Since the project was launched five months ago, a total of 87t/CO2e was avoided by switching to bioLNG in the three trucks.
Germany-based biogas plant operators EnviTec and Balance have revealed they will form a joint venture called Balance EnviTec Bio-LNG to supply the growing bioLNG market. The pair also confirmed they will build a bioLNG-producing facility in Brandenburg, near Berlin, which is set to open in late 2023.
Facilities update: EfW
Cory unveiled what it says could “potentially” be the “world’s biggest” decarbonisation project linked to an energy-recovery facility. The CCS project would be able to capture 90% of the emissions from its existing EfW facility and its new adjacent EfW facility which is expected to be operational by 2026. Cory says it has already notified the Planning Inspectorate that it will apply for a development consent order (DCO) for the CCS technology, which would be considered a nationally significant infrastructure project.
The UK government backed a nearly doubling of electrical capacity at the Czech-owned EP UK Investments (EPUKI) owned South Humber Bank Energy Centre. The government said the facility’s gross electrical capacity could be increased from 49.9MWe to 95MWe. The plant’s waste processing capacity of 753,500t/yr will not change under the plans.
Co-developers Viridor and Grundon pulled plans for a 295,000t/yr EfW, which would also have had a capacity of up to 28MWe. West Sussex County Council had recommended turning down the application only days before it was pulled. The developers have said the plans will be resubmitted.
The Isle of Wight’s EfW plant looks like entering operations next January, about three years later than first planned. The Isle of Wight Council has been “advised” by its waste management company Amey “that the EfW plant will begin operations in January due to some unforeseen technical issues”. Should the facility meet its latest deadline it would be three years behind schedule; when construction began at the site in May 2017 it was expected to open in mid-2019. Overall, the site can take up to 80,000t/yr, with half of that heading to the EfW plant to generate 23,000MWh of energy annually.
EfW plant developer and operator Enfinium revealed its latest facility is moving to construction after financial close was confirmed today, with the firm aiming for it to be operational in 2025. Enfinium said the 395,000t/yr Kevlin facility, based in West Bromwich, would be built by Spain-based Acciona, which has now picked up its third such contract in the UK.
In related news, US-based Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) revealed a €51.2m deal to supply a “boiler, combustion grate and other equipment” to an unnamed EfW plant in “Europe”. Through a process of elimination, EWB was eventually able to confirm this was Enfinium’s Kelvin facility. EWB previously reported the plant’s capacities matched Enfinium’s Skelton Grange facility. However, the company confirmed it was in fact its EfW Kelvin site. B&W is a subcontractor to Spain-based Acciona.
Joint developers Advanced Biofuel Solutions Ltd (ABSL) and Greenergy revealed plans to turn municipal waste into biomethane or biohydrogen at five UK-based locations. ABSL said its “proven and patented” RadGas technology will be used at the first plant to convert 133,000t/yr of municipal waste, which is due to be operational within four years and is currently at the design stage. ABSL is also building a demonstration-scale facility for its technology in Swindon, which was due to be operational in October, but EWB understands it is still undergoing final tests.
Copenhagen-based EfW business ARC signed a deal with construction firm Skou to build new waste-collection infrastructure that will allow the facility to electrify its collection fleet. ARC is the operator of the Amager Bakke EfW facility and Skou states it will establish electrical infrastructure to supply 65 waste-collection trucks and five service vehicles. The new facilities are expected to be ready to start waste collection at Amager Bakke in 2024, a year before the city’s target of being carbon neutral.
Silicone-producer Elkem had Norway’s prime minister open its new EfW plant in November. Jonas Gahr Støre opened the EfW plant at Elkem Salten in the northern part of Norway. The new plant will recover 28% of the electrical energy used at Elkem Salten, equal to the power consumption of about 15,000 households.
Austria-based engineering firm Andritz declared a “first” for Finland after revealing it had been commissioned to install new technology on a waste-processing plant. The project involves a Metris BOA measurement and analysis system at the Hämeenkyrö plant in Finland, which is owned by utility company Pohjolan Voima. According to a statement, the 55MWth and 12MWe facility needs the technology as part of its switch from fossil fuel to waste-based feedstock.
The developer of a 300,000t/yr EfW plant in Northern Ireland hit out again at the length of time it has taken for a decision to be made on the development. The Indaver-led Becon Consortium is developing the 18MWe plant on behalf of six local authorities under the Arc21 umbrella. Arc21 said it was concerned that 18 years of work “could be wasted” and that ongoing planning delays to the facility could also lead to a “waste crisis”, leaving the region unable to process rising amounts of refuse. Opponents of the project say waste figures for the region show there is no need for it.
Local authority Pembrokeshire County Council unveiled plans to build an eco park to further increase its recycling capacity and create a centre to process waste for energy recovery elsewhere. The facility would enable materials collected across Pembrokeshire to be “bulked, sorted and stored prior to onward transfer to processing and disposal facilities across Wales and the UK”. A consultation into the plan is now open and comments are being accepted until 9 December. In late 2018, Pembrokeshire signed a deal to send 20,000t/yr to Viridor’s 30MWe Trident Park EfW plant near Cardiff.
Facilities update: Biomass
A fire at an under-development biomass-processing plant was stabilised after nearly a week, developer MGT Teesside said in November. MGT told EWB nitrogen was injected into the silo and workers involved with commissioning were told not to come to work. The plant is reported to be entering operations next month but it has missed several dates to fire up since it was meant to open in July 2018. Investment funds Australia-based Macquarie and Denmark-based PKA have financed the project.
A public inquiry headed by a planning inspector is due to be held in an effort to tie up several loose ends surrounding the planning consent of a troubled waste wood-gasification plant development in Wales. EWB understands the inquiry into Barry Biomass No2 will be held next year with a planning inspector deciding on whether the plant should retain its planning consent after issues emerged with how it had been built and the fact it was constructed without an environmental impact assessment (EIA).
Danish utility company Ørsted struck a deal for a new continuous ship unloader (CSU). The CSU will be able to unload 600 tonnes of bio-pellets an hour or about 1Mt/yr. Belgium-based Vigan Engineering will install and begin commissioning of the equipment from next July to the end of October next year.
Facilities update: Biogas
Local authority South Norfolk Council halted work on a new-build biogas plant in Norwich. The plant, which the developers have previously said was due to produce up to 5Mm³/yr of biomethane, stopped due to concerns over the legality of the site’s planning consent. The developer Storengy UK, a subsidiary of Engie, has previously confirmed the site would benefit from revenue through the UK’s Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI).
Netherlands-based anaerobic digestion plant builder Bright Biomethane revealed plans to develop a first upgrading facility in Hungary. Bright is partnering with Hungary-based construction firm Omnis Epito Kft and Biogaz Unio, which is the “largest player” in the country’s biogas sector. The facility will produce 400m3 of biomethane, which is enough to replace the natural gas use of “1,500 local households” and will be injected to the grid.
Utility company Severn Trent Green Power looks like securing a change to planning restrictions around an anaerobic digestion plant it has taken over. The facility was originally developed by Agrivert and when it opened in 2017 the 50,000t/yr and was the firm’s fifth such plant. However, having recently taken on the plant, Severn Trent applied to local authority Hertfordshire County Council to remove a condition requiring at least 70% of the digestate produced to be applied to agricultural land within a nine-kilometre radius of the site to avoid transporting the product significant distances.
UK-based Arjun signed a deal to fund the development of Anaergia’s biogas-producing facilities in Italy. The financing of up to €100m is planned to run over a decade and it is expected that “10-12” new projects will be built.
Whiskey-maker Jackson Distillers included biogas production as part of its new distillery project, which gained planning permission in November. Jackson’s St Boswells Distillery, based at Charlesfield Industrial Estate in the Scottish Borders, will be Scotland’s lowest carbon grain distillery. The project, which is due to be operational in 2024, is also Scotland’s first grain distillery to be developed in 10 years.
EWB insight report: November 2021
This month: Scotland considers an EfW moratorium, the AEB sale progresses, Cory reveals the world’s largest decarbonisation project on an EfW plant, and why energy recovery needs to put the U in CCUS
As Scotland’s considers an EfW ‘moratorium’ EWB considers if it stack up against potential capacity
Scotland has announced plans that could see the country follow Wales’s lead and introduce a moratorium on energy from waste (EfW), despite figures showing that the technology has helped to divert waste from landfill and export.
Scotland has been a success in recent years as it invested heavily in EfW, adding four new facilities in 2019 alone.
Two years ago, waste company Viridor built facilities in Glasgow and Dunbar, which can process 200,000t/yr and 300,000t/yr respectively.
Also in 2019, FCC opened the 135,000t/yr Millerhill plant, while the same year also saw Levenseat open the first phase of its EfW plant, which can process 250,000t/yr of waste. The project could eventually process up to 750,000t/yr.
Before 2019, there were two operational EfW plants in Scotland, one is the Lerwick facility owned by Shetland Council, which processes about 22,000t/yr, and the other is in Dundee. The Dundee plant is due to be replaced by a new one being developed by MVV, which will process about 110,000t/yr. However, this plant has missed several deadlines and MVV did not respond when EWB asked for an update on the project.
Figures from environmental watchdog the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) show that the EfW plants have reduced the amount of the country’s waste going to landfill. With a report showing that in 2019 Scotland sent less than 1Mt to landfill for the first time.
The total amount of household waste generated in Scotland was 2.4Mt in 2019, an increase of 17,000 tonnes (1%) from 2018. In 2019, 760,000t was landfilled, a reduction of 273,000t (26%) from 2018 and a reduction of 696,000t (48%) since 2011.
Also in 2019, the total amount of Scottish household waste “managed by other diversion from landfill” was 577,000t, an increase of 278,000t (93%) from 2018. Most of the diverted waste in 2019 was managed by EfW (79%) – a success most would argue.
At the same time the Scottish household waste recycling rate was 44.9%, a slight increase from the 44.7% rate achieved in 2018. The amount of household waste recycled between 2018 and 2019 increased by 12,000t to 1.1Mt.
Two other facilities are due to go into operation next year: the 150,000t/yr NESS project in Aberdeen and the 216,000t/yr Earls Gate facility, which developer Brockwell Energy confirmed to EWB in October is due to start taking waste next autumn.
However, while the new plants will add 366,000t/yr of capacity, based on the 2019 figures that still means 394,000t would be heading for landfill or exported for energy recovery abroad.
Only last month, financial close was also reached on construction of the Oldhall EfW project, which will eventually process 185,600t/yr when it is operational. The project was already fully consented. Again using 2019, figures that would still leave 208,400t/yr going to landfill.
There is another EfW plant consented in the pipeline Aberdeenshire Council gave planning consent earlier this year to a 35MWe facility on the site of a redundant paper mill in Inverurie, Aberdeen, which is being developed by Agile Energy. It will bring another 240,000t/yr of capacity to Scotland, when it is operational which would take up all the remaining capacity.
As a result, the projects for which a moratorium would cause the most concern is a third Scottish EfW plant being developed by Viridor in Overwood. The company only announced plans for the facility earlier this year. And Scottish waste firm Barr which also lodged plans for a new EfW facility over the summer, which could also be hit by the review.
Viridor’s plant would process 330,000t/yr and Barr’s would take 166,000t/yr, totalling 496,000t, which is more than double the remaining 208,400t.
As Scotland's household waste only increased by 17,000t between 2018 and 2019, and even factoring in home-working, figures are unlikely to increase so significantly that the pipeline plants would be needed.
However, that is of course not factoring in any commercial or industrial waste, which also needs to be dealt with.
Policy update
CIWM president and external affairs director at Suez Recycling and Recovery UK, Dr Adam Read, called on the EfW sector to make sure it puts the U in CCUS, saying that not everybody in the sector has got new initiatives right. “We shouldn’t be parking issues such as this. There’s lots of industrial options to move the carbon back where the carbon needs to be. This gives the opportunity of making some EfW facilities net positive and that’s the golden ticket,” Dr Read told EWB in his role as part of the news service’s Editorial Panel.
EfW plant owners Fortum Oslo Varme and Amager Ressourcecenter (ARC) failed to gain support for their respective CCS projects from the EU Innovation Fund. The high-profile project at the Klemetsrud EfW plant near Oslo and the Ski slope-equipped Amager Bakke in Copenhagen were not among the seven projects that received backing in November. The projects are considering applying for a second round of funding due to be decided next year.
In a related story, Sweden-based utility company Stockholm Exergi celebrated the success of its EU Innovation bid. The company said securing funding would allow it to finance and build a full-scale BECCS system at its KVV8 biopower plant in Stockholm, which is planned to open in 2025.The BECCS system will have a separation capacity of almost 800,000t/yr of CO2. However, the project still needs to secure Swedish state aid, which is planned to be determined next year through a “reverse auction”.
The European Commission said it would take Romania back to the Court of Justice of the European Union for failing to meet its obligations under the Landfill Directive. The commission states Romania failed to fully comply with a court judgment of 18 October 2018, which found it failed to meet its obligations. According to that judgment, by 16 July 2009 Romania was obliged to close and rehabilitate all landfills that did not obtain a permit to operate. However, the court found that 68 of Romania’s landfills had failed to comply with this obligation.
The EU executive wants to ensure Europe deals with its own rubbish, rather than allowing exports to countries that often lack the capacity to deal with it sustainably. The European Commission published its proposals for a new regulation on waste shipments, which as the overarching aim to “boost the circular economy and ensure EU waste stops polluting third countries”. However, trade body ESWET warned that “unnecessary obstacles” to intra-EU shipments of waste could disrupt national waste management chains.
Market update
Dutch waste management firm AVR emerged as a “preferred bidder” for rival EfW plant owner and operator AEB Amsterdam. EWB understands there are three bidders in the running with AVR leading the field currently. AEB ran into trouble in 2019 after issues with its facilities, which eventually required a bailout from the city of Amsterdam.
Concerns were raised of a “total whitewash” after two local authorities held a secret vote where they both confirmed at least several more months of work would be carried out on a failed EfW plant. The votes, held by the city and county councils of Derby, were the latest development in the pair’s waste-gasification facility, which was meant to be operational in 2019, but is currently mothballed.
Enfinium, which was renamed from Wheelabrator earlier this year, confirmed that its current chief executive officer, Julia Watsford, “has decided to leave the company”. Watsford, who will “pursue other opportunities” is to be replaced by Mike Maudsley on 4 January. Maudsley joins Enfinium, most recently from Drax, where he was the group operations director.
N+P Group revealed it has signed a binding agreement to acquire a lightweight packaging sorting plant in Rotterdam from PreZero Netherlands. N+P’s also said further acquisitions could be on the cards, stating it was “actively pursuing further acquisition opportunities in the European market”. Its new plant sorts about 110,000t/yr of packaging, making it one of the largest such facilities in the Netherlands. The deal has “significant synergies... between the existing operations and Subcoal, N+P’s patented waste derived alternative fuel”.
Logistics giant DHL Freight reported that its testing of bio-liquified natural gas (bioLNG) has shown initial promising results in Germany. DHL said oil-giant Shell had been supplying bioLNG for use in three trucks, which the logistics firm had been running with pump-supplier Grundfos in France. Since the project was launched five months ago, a total of 87t/CO2e was avoided by switching to bioLNG in the three trucks.
Germany-based biogas plant operators EnviTec and Balance have revealed they will form a joint venture called Balance EnviTec Bio-LNG to supply the growing bioLNG market. The pair also confirmed they will build a bioLNG-producing facility in Brandenburg, near Berlin, which is set to open in late 2023.
Facilities update: EfW
Cory unveiled what it says could “potentially” be the “world’s biggest” decarbonisation project linked to an energy-recovery facility. The CCS project would be able to capture 90% of the emissions from its existing EfW facility and its new adjacent EfW facility which is expected to be operational by 2026. Cory says it has already notified the Planning Inspectorate that it will apply for a development consent order (DCO) for the CCS technology, which would be considered a nationally significant infrastructure project.
The UK government backed a nearly doubling of electrical capacity at the Czech-owned EP UK Investments (EPUKI) owned South Humber Bank Energy Centre. The government said the facility’s gross electrical capacity could be increased from 49.9MWe to 95MWe. The plant’s waste processing capacity of 753,500t/yr will not change under the plans.
Co-developers Viridor and Grundon have pulled plans for a 295,000t/yr EfW, which would also have had a capacity of up to 28MWe. West Sussex County Council had recommended turning down the application only days before it was pulled. The developers have said the plans will be resubmitted.
The Isle of Wight’s EfW plant looks like entering operations next January, about three years later than first planned. The Isle of Wight Council has been “advised” by its waste management company Amey “that the EfW plant will begin operations in January due to some unforeseen technical issues”. Should the facility meet its latest deadline it would be three years behind schedule; when construction began at the site in May 2017 it was expected to open in mid-2019. Overall, the site can take up to 80,000t/yr, with half of that heading to the EfW plant to generate 23,000MWh of energy annually.
EfW plant developer and operator Enfinium revealed its latest facility is moving to construction after financial close was confirmed today, with the firm aiming for it to be operational in 2025. Enfinium said the 395,000t/yr Kevlin facility, based in West Bromwich, would be built by Spain-based Acciona, which has now picked up its third such contract in the UK.
In related news, US-based Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) revealed a €51.2m deal to supply a “boiler, combustion grate and other equipment” to an unnamed EfW plant in “Europe”. Through a process of elimination, EWB was eventually able to confirm this was Enfinium’s Kelvin facility. EWB previously reported the plant’s capacities matched Enfinium’s Skelton Grange facility. However, the company confirmed it was in fact its EfW Kelvin site. B&W is a subcontractor to Spain-based Acciona.
Joint developers Advanced Biofuel Solutions Ltd (ABSL) and Greenergy revealed plans to turn municipal waste into biomethane or biohydrogen at five UK-based locations. ABSL said its “proven and patented” RadGas technology will be used at the first plant to convert 133,000t/yr of municipal waste, which is due to be operational within four years and is currently at the design stage. ABSL is also building a demonstration-scale facility for its technology in Swindon, which was due to be operational in October, but EWB understands it is still undergoing final tests.
Copenhagen-based EfW business Amager Ressourcecenter (ARC) signed a deal with construction firm Skou to build new waste-collection infrastructure that will allow the facility to electrify its collection fleet. ARC is the operator of the Amager Bakke EfW facility and Skou states it will establish electrical infrastructure to supply 65 waste-collection trucks and five service vehicles. The new facilities are expected to be ready to start waste collection at Amager Bakke in 2024, a year before the city’s target of being carbon neutral.
Silicone-producer Elkem had Norway’s prime minister open its new EfW plant in November. Jonas Gahr Støre opened the EfW plant at Elkem Salten in the northern part of Norway. The new plant will recover 28% of the electrical energy used at Elkem Salten, equal to the power consumption of about 15,000 households.
Austria-based engineering firm Andritz declared a “first” for Finland after revealing it had been commissioned to install new technology on a waste-processing plant. The project involves a Metris BOA measurement and analysis system at the Hämeenkyrö plant in Finland, which is owned by utility company Pohjolan Voima. According to a statement, the 55MWth and 12MWe facility needs the technology as part of its switch from fossil fuel to waste-based feedstock.
The developer of a 300,000t/yr EfW plant in Northern Ireland hit out again at the length of time it has taken for a decision to be made on the development. The Indaver-led Becon Consortium is developing the 18MWe plant on behalf of six local authorities under the Arc21 umbrella. Arc21 said it was concerned that 18 years of work “could be wasted” and that ongoing planning delays to the facility could also lead to a “waste crisis”, leaving the region unable to process rising amounts of refuse. Opponents of the project say waste figures for the region show there is no need for it.
Local authority Pembrokeshire County Council unveiled plans to build an eco park to further increase its recycling capacity and create a centre to process waste for energy recovery elsewhere. The facility would enable materials collected across Pembrokeshire to be “bulked, sorted and stored prior to onward transfer to processing and disposal facilities across Wales and the UK”. A consultation into the plan is now open and comments are being accepted until 9 December. In late 2018, Pembrokeshire signed a deal to send 20,000t/yr to Viridor’s 30MWe Trident Park EfW plant near Cardiff.
Facilities update: Biomass
A fire at an under-development biomass-processing plant was stabilised after nearly a week, developer MGT Teesside said in November. MGT told EWB nitrogen was injected into the silo and workers involved with commissioning were told not to come to work. The plant is reported to be entering operations next month but it has missed several dates to fire up since it was meant to open in July 2018. Investment funds Australia-based Macquarie and Denmark-based PKA have financed the project.
A public inquiry headed by a planning inspector is due to be held in an effort to tie up several loose ends surrounding the planning consent of a troubled waste wood-gasification plant development in Wales. EWB understands the inquiry into Barry Biomass No2 will be held next year with a planning inspector deciding on whether the plant should retain its planning consent after issues emerged with how it had been built and the fact it was constructed without an environmental impact assessment (EIA).
Danish utility company Ørsted struck a deal for a new continuous ship unloader (CSU). The CSU will be able to unload 600 tonnes of bio-pellets an hour or about 1Mt/yr. Belgium-based Vigan Engineering will install and begin commissioning of the equipment from next July to the end of October next year.
Facilities update: Biogas
Local authority South Norfolk Council halted work on a new-build biogas plant in Norwich. The plant, which the developers have previously said was due to produce up to 5Mm³/yr of biomethane, stopped due to concerns over the legality of the site’s planning consent. The developer Storengy UK, a subsidiary of ENgie, has previously confirmed the site would benefit from revenue through the UK’s Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI).
Netherlands-based anaerobic digestion plant builder Bright Biomethane revealed plans to develop a first upgrading facility in Hungary. Bright is partnering with Hungary-based construction firm Omnis Epito Kft and Biogaz Unio, which is the “largest player” in the country’s biogas sector. The facility will produce 400m3 of biomethane, which is enough to replace the natural gas use of “1,500 local households” and will be injected to the grid.
Utility company Severn Trent Green Power looks like securing a change to planning restrictions around an anaerobic digestion plant it has taken over. The facility was originally developed by Agrivert and when it opened in 2017 the 50,000t/yr and was the firm’s fifth such plant. However, having recently taken on the plant, Severn Trent applied to local authority Hertfordshire County Council to remove a condition requiring at least 70% of the digestate produced to be applied to agricultural land within a nine-kilometre radius of the site to avoid transporting the product significant distances.
UK-based Arjun signed a deal to fund the development of Anaergia’s biogas-producing facilities in Italy. The financing of up to €100m is planned to run over a decade and it is expected that “10-12” new projects will be built.
Whiskey-maker Jackson Distillers included biogas production as part of its new distillery project, which gained planning permission in November. Jackson’s St Boswells Distillery, based at Charlesfield Industrial Estate in the Scottish Borders, will be Scotland’s lowest carbon grain distillery. The project, which is due to be operational in 2024, is also Scotland’s first grain distillery to be developed in 10 years.
