The 30-year contract includes the development of a an energy from waste (EfW) facility at Greatmoor, near Aylesbury, which will process up to 300,000 tonnes of the countys household and business waste and generate 22MW of electricity enough to power the equivalent of 36,000 homes.
According to FCC, construction on the Greatmoor EfW is anticipated to start later in 2013 and around 300 temporary jobs will be created through the three-year construction phase with 64 permanent jobs at the facility and 31 more in the supply chain.
The firm, which is the UK arm of Spanish parent company FCC, also estimates that the Greatmoor EfW will provide up to 2.3 million to the local Aylesbury Vale economy per year and approximately 3.1 million at the county level.
Buckinghamshire county council named FCC Environment as the preferred bidder for the contract in 2011, and councils cabinet awarded the firm the contract on 23 July 2012 (see letsrecycle.com story). Also in 2012, the Development Control Committee granted the Greatmoor project planning permission and the Environment Agency issued the facility with its permit to operate.
Paul Taylor, FCC Environment chief executive, said: We are delighted to have reached this important milestone with Buckinghamshire county council, and are looking forward now to delivering the facilities and an integrated service that the county can be proud of.
‘We are delighted to have reached this important milestone with Buckinghamshire county council’
Paul Taylor, FCC Environment chief executive
This is also an important step forward in FCC Environments continuing development as a business that understands its customers requirements for extracting value, in the form of energy, from the waste left over after recycling has taken place.
Neil Gibson, Buckinghamshire county councils strategic director for communities and built environment, said: Both the council and FCC Environment have worked very hard to reach this stage and ensure that Buckinghamshires waste will be managed more sustainably in the future. The energy from waste facility will not only divert substantial amounts of waste from landfill but it will also be saving our council tax payers over 150 million over the life of the contract. We are excited to be working with FCC Environment to deliver this.
Derbyshire MRF
The signing of the Buckinghamshire contract comes after FCC this week also announced the opening of a 3.2 million materials recycling facility (MRF) at Somercotes Industrial Park in Alfreton, Derbyshire.
Developed on the site of a former waste transfer station, the MRF is capable of processing up to 80,000 tonnes a year of material, which is principally commercial and industrial waste sourced from the East Midlands region.
The facility has been assembled within the existing transfer station building, but has been internally transformed into an MRF, which will operate from 7am to 5pm Monday to Friday. FCC Environment said the opening of the facility has generated 30 new jobs for the region.
RDF
Of the material brought to the MRF, 53% of the input is then used to produce a refuse derived fuel (RDF). The remaining material is sorted into ferrous and non-ferrous metals, paper, card, plastic film and PET/HDPE before being sent for processing.
The firm also said that the site has planning consent for a wind turbine which will provide renewable energy for consumption on site.
According to recent research undertaken by FCC Environment, unless East Midlands businesses recycle or recover more of their waste, it will cost them more than 90m in landfill tax during the 2013/14 financial year 11m more than last year, the firm claims.
Richard Jeffery, national sales manager at FCC Environment, said: The establishment of the Alfreton MRF closes the loop for our business waste infrastructure in the East Midlands. We can now offer to our customers a service which incorporates business waste collection, recycling and the production of energy from residual waste material.
The MRF plays a vital role in this service and our objective is to realise as much value as possible from this material by driving it up the waste hierarchy and diverting as much of it as possible from landfill disposal.
Dutch energy-from-waste firm Twence signed a contract with FCC Environment in February to process up to 200,000 tonnes per year of RDF from several FCC Environment sites in the Midlands and South East of England (see letsrecycle.com story).
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