The Norwegian company opened the facility yesterday (25 April) with the Deputy Lord Mayor of Kingston upon Hull, Kalvin Neal, cutting the ribbon.
The £10 million facility will treat the 68,000 tonnes of residual waste from Geminor’s contract with Hull City council, which runs until 2030. The remaining tonnage will be sourced from third parties.
Construction of the processing facility has been conducted by engineering company Keltbray (see letsrecycle.com story).
Country manager at Geminor UK, Oliver Caunce, said: “The establishment of our new HUB is an important move for Geminor and will enable us to grow further in the UK. The investment shows our commitment to the domestic and international renewable market, and we will shortly be supplying EfW-operators in the UK and across Scandinavia at full capacity.”
He added that Geminor is preparing for Phase 2, which will see the company look to remove more of the plastic from the local, residual waste. “This will make us able to produce low carbon secondary fuels as well as more plastic fractions for chemical recycling,” Mr Cuance said.
Facility
Geminor began construction work on the facility in January 2022, explaining that Hull’s domestic waste collections will be transported directly to the facility for processing into RDF, which will then be supplied to local energy from waste facilities.
Geminor said its facility, called ‘The HUB’, is equipped with “the latest industry requirements and technology”. This includes Exeons Odour Abatement system, Helios Fire Suppression, alongside plant vs people proximity sensors to “ensure safety”.
When winning the contract with Hull city council in 2017, Geminor said the facility will prepare RDF which will be processed at the nearby Energy Works Hull gasification plant (see letsrecycle.com story).
Energy Works Hull was due to come online in 2018 and is supported by Bioenergy Infrastructure Group Limited (BIG), NOY Waste to Energy and John Hancock Life Insurance Company. The plant, according to its website, is still to come online and has been hit by a number of delays.
We now can operate our first processing facility outside of the Nordics
- Kjetil Vikingstad, Geminor
Export
Geminor’s RDF plant will now ensure the company can hit its target to divert Hull’s waste away from landfill, with the tonnage now used in the company’s RDF operations instead. Geminor is one of the largest exporters of RDF in the UK and also holds contract with a number of UK councils, including Swansea and Hull.
Kjetil Vikingstad, chief executive of Geminor, explained that the Hull facility has a great “strategic importance” to Geminor.
“We are delighted that everything has gone according to plan and that we now can operate our first processing facility outside of the Nordics. The HUB will be strategically important with respect to our partner Hull City Council, but also in our efforts to optimize secondary waste fuel supply in the domestic and export markets,” he said.
Mr Vikingstad added: “The opening of the Hull facility means that we now have waste processing operations not only in import markets but also in export markets such as the UK. This will make it easier to deliver on the demands from the international industry operators.”
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