New WTE plant opens in UK

Spain-based FCC Group and the Buckinghamshire County Council in the United Kingdom say they have opened the doors to their new Greatmoor waste-to-energy (WTE) facility. The plant has been designed to treat up to 300,000 metric tons of waste per year and generate 22 megawatts (MW) of electricity – the equivalent of powering up to 36,000 homes.

FCC says the project has required an investment of £209.7 million ($277.3 million) in the project, which also includes two transfer stations and a new access road.

The new WTE facility is FCC’s eighth one, with another one currently under construction. It was designed and built by Switzerland-based Hitachi Zosen INOVA (HZI) and is funded through what FCC calls “an innovative use of construction-only finance and prudential borrowing,” which began in September 2013. The site employs 46 people and will generate up to £2.3 million ($3.04 million) for the local Aylesbury Vale economy per year, says FCC. The facility also will be the primary disposal point for all of Buckinghamshire’s local authority waste.

Paul Taylor, chief executive of FCC’s U.K. subsidiary (FCC Environment), says, “Greatmoor [WTE] will convert Buckinghamshire’s household and business waste, the material that cannot otherwise be recycled, into renewable energy. This will reduce the county’s dependence on landfill disposal. The contract will run for 30 years, bringing significant sustainability and economic benefits to Buckinghamshire.”

Aylesbury Vale District Council and some of the county’s Household Waste Centres will deliver waste directly to the facility, with the three southern districts councils (South Bucks, Chiltern and Wycombe) and the rest of the HWRCs using a Waste Transfer Station at High Heavens near Wycombe. The Waste Transfer Station, which has also been constructed as part of the contract between FCC and Buckinghamshire County Council, is used to aggregate and load waste into trucks for onward transport to the WTE facility.

“The construction of Greatmoor [WTE] marks an important step forward for FCC Environment as the business continues to develop, focusing on its customers’ requirements for extracting value, in the form of energy, from the waste left over after recycling has taken place,” adds Taylor.

Antonio Alfonso, managing director and head of FCC Environment’s International Division, adds, “The opening of this facility demonstrates our ability to effectively deliver waste to energy solutions under public-private partnership schemes.”

Madrid-based FCC Group currently serves more than 53 million people in 13 countries, with a network of more than 120 recycling facilities and 10 WTE projects, with a combined capacity over 2.6 million tons and 300 MW power output.

FCC says its environment division also has recently secured contracts in the United States to design, build and operate the Dallas municipal waste and recycling plant and to manage a solid waste collection contract in Orange County, Florida.