Viridor’s 76 million energy-from-waste (EfW) plant in Peterborough is on schedule to begin operations in Winter 2015 after the installation of a multi-million pound grate that will feed waste through the combustion chamber.
The bespoke water and air-cooled DynaGrate machine, thought to have cost around 15 million, is the first to be installed in the UK. It was developed in Denmark by renewable energy technology firm Babcock & Wilcox Volund before being shipped over for installation.
It works as a griddle to feed residual waste through the incineration chamber, with excess ash from the process dropping though the DynaGrate to a chamber below. The ash will then be reused and recycled for various construction purposes.
Construction of the 85,000 tonnes per year capacity EfW on the Fengate Industrial Estate began last year, and on Monday (August 11), work on installing the facility’s boiler directly above the grate will commence (see letsrecycle.com story).
According to waste management firm Viridor, which will operate the facility under a 30-year public private partnership (PPP) deal signed with Peterborough city council in February 2013, hot commissioning of the plant and electricity generation will begin next summer before the facility opens at the end of 2015.
Once operational, the 7.25MW plant will divert around 94% of the waste delivered to the 1.9 hectare site from landfill while generating enough electricity to power around 15% of Peterborough’s homes.
Peterborough
Peterborough city council currently landfills 45,000-50,000 tonnes of household waste each year and recycles around 40,000 tonnes. The facility is needed as this landfill figure, Viridor said, is expected to grow, with the city’s landfill sites almost full and becoming increasingly expensive to use.
Stuart Sim, director of energy from waste at Viridor, said: The main advantage with this particular plant is its compact size, which was key for this site because it’s a pretty tight site. It’s also very good in terms of energy efficiency. And the grate is a tried and proven grate, although this is its first use here in the UK, so there are a number of positives to it.
The plant is being built on the city council’s former materials recycling facility (MRF) site, which was also operated by Viridor, while the council is also planning to develop an adjacent indoor household waste and recycling centre (HWRC), which will feed residual waste to the EfW facility.
‘The main advantage with this particular plant is its compact size, which was key for this site because it’s a pretty tight site. It’s also very good in terms of energy efficiency.’
Stuart Sim, director of energy from waste, Viridor
Mr Sim said: Citizens of Peterborough will have seen things happening on this site for about a year now, but we have been active on this for years with procurement, planning and design – it is not just one year of activity.
By building a plant like this it means that landfill in this area will generally be a thing of the past, and by displacing landfill there is a significant reduction in greenhouse gases. We will be generating just over seven megawatts – 15% of the needs of homes in Peterborough. This shows a very significant contribution during the current climate of fears about energy security.
Around 200 jobs will be generated throughout the construction period along with 25 permanent jobs at the plant after its completion.
Viridor
The Peterborough plant is one of several Viridor facilities nearing completion, with the firm’s EfW projects at Ardley in Oxfordshire and Trident Park in Cardiff expected to come online this year.
Mr Sims said: These are very exciting times for Viridor, because it is very unusual to have that many plants at this stage for one company.
Babcock & Wilcox Volund, based in Denmark with a UK office in Birmingham, has installed several DynaGrate machines at EfW plants in Scandinavia and also in the USA.
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