The Bank, Foresight Group and Zouk Capital today (March 23) announced equity investments in the construction of the Levenseat Renewable Energy Limited 12.5 MWe energy from waste (EfW) plant and adjacent materials recycling facility (MRF).
GIB’s £28.25m investment was made via UK Waste & Resource & Energy Investments (UKWREI), the Foresight-managed fund.
The project is also backed by an equity investment from central Scotland-based waste management and recycling company Levenseat Limited and senior debt from Investec Bank plc.
According to the GIB, this will be the ‘first time’ a UK plant has combined fluidised bed gasification technology with Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) from a MRF.
Once waste arrives at the plant, recyclables material such as metals, paper and plastic will be removed by the MRF, leaving a residual RDF fuel. This will be then sent to the EfW plant where it will be gasified in a fluidised bed to create syngas, which will then undergo further combustion to produce heat. This heat will then be used to produce steam to produce electricity.
The project is forecast to recycle over a million tonnes of materials over its 25-year lifetime and will generate the heat required by the MRF.
Electricity
According to the GIB, the development is expected to supply electricity for the National Grid equivalent to the needs of nearly 18,000 homes over its lifespan. It is also expected to save 1.4 million tonnes of waste from going into landfill and deliver a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of around 1.3 million tonnes.
The MRF is expected to become operational in January 2017, with the complete plant commencing operations in June of that year. M+W Group has been appointed main (EPC) contractor for the project.
Given its location near the centre of the M8 corridor, the facility is believed to be ‘well placed’ to process household waste from several local authorities and commercial waste from the Glasgow and Edinburgh regions.
Shaun Kingsbury, chief executive of the UK Green Investment Bank, said: “This first-of-kind project is the latest innovative example of how the UK is modernising its waste management infrastructure. By increasing recycling and using the remaining waste to produce energy, the Levenseat project will make a significant contribution towards Scotland’s ‘zero waste plan’.”
Levenseat
Peter MacLaren, director at Levenseat, said: “Levenseat is delighted to be delivering a first-of-kind technology to the UK market. This is further evidence of our commitment to developing new environmental and economic solutions for waste management and with the construction of our new plant together with our wider established facility we will be delivering to the market Scotland’s largest integrated facility providing treatment and recovery for a wide range of waste materials.
“We look forward to announcing further details shortly regarding the technology being used and our programme of Community Benefits including opportunities for local recruitment. We are also actively pursuing the opportunity to supply spare heat from the new plant to local homes.”
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