Lakeside Energy from Waste – the joint venture between Grundon Waste Management and Viridor – announced today that work on the 410,000 tonne capacity plant had been on schedule until six weeks ago.
However, the main building contractor, Japanese company Itochu-Takuma, identified some defects in the plant during testing which has put back the opening date to July 2009.
The problems relate to the economiser units, which recover heat from the combustion gases and help to make the plant more energy efficient.
A Lakeside spokesman said: “This is disappointing news but we are working with our customers to help them meet their waste management targets.
“The economiser remediation programme will not affect other areas of the remaining development programme,” he added.
Problems
A spokeswoman for Lakeside today insisted that the delay would not cause big problems for the councils who had contracts to send waste to the plant – because she said that they had alternative ways to treat their waste and that both Grundon and Viridor had other facilities which could be used instead.
She added that it would not significantly increase the cost of using the plant, commenting: “The contracts are flexible enough that the delay won't make any fundamental difference to the gate fee price.”
Councils
Responding to this, some councils who had signed up to send their waste to the plant agreed that the delay was not a “disaster.”
However, some insisted that it could hit their landfill diversion efforts and would cause even greater problems if the July 2009 deadline was not reached.
Wiltshire
In Wiltshire, waste services manager Andy Conn said that the delay meant the council may have to buy landfill allowances if it could not find an alternative waste disposal route.
The council was meant to start sending 50,000 tonnes of residual waste to the Colnbrook facility a year from this summer, since signing a 25 year contract last April (see letsrecycle.com story).
Mr Conn said: “We may have to do some Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme trading during 2009-10 unless we can find alternative ways to improve our diversion performance. We are looking at one or two things. The delay has not caused alarm but it is something we need to address.”
Catastrophe
In Poole, the cabinet portfolio holder for the environment Cllr Donald Collier explained that the council had not been intending to send its residual waste to the plant until 2009 anyway.
The council agreed to send its waste to the plant under a 20-year contract with Viridor in 2006 (see letsrecycle.com story).
However, he stressed that any further delay would cause real problems.
He said: “We work very closely with Viridor and we will discuss with them what we will do. It's not a catastrophe but if it is delayed any further it could be.”
In 2006, the RE3 partnership of waste firm WRG and three Berkshire councils also agreed to send waste to the plant (see letsrecycle.com story). Other contracts have not been publicly announced.
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