The SITA UK facility, located at Great Blakenham near Ipswich, has been receiving residual waste from Suffolk county council since commissioning began at the plant in June 2014.
Testing at the site is now complete and the plant has officially started producing electricity for the National Grid. Over the lifetime of the contract the plant is estimated to save the county council around £350 million compared to the cost of sending its residual waste to landfill.
Contract
The plant was constructed as part of a £1 billion, 25-year residual waste management contract signed in October 2010. The facility was successfully granted planning permission in July 2011 (see letsrecycle.com story).
Under the contract, Suffolk county council is required to pay for the treatment of up to 170,000 tonnes of residual waste per year at the plant – and must work with SITA UK to identify alternative customers if it fails to provide sufficient feedstock.
In September, the county council welcomed Defra’s approval of a two-year agreement enabling the Great Blakenham plant to receive 40,000 tonnes of residual waste from Norfolk, allowing both councils to make savings of around £1 million (see letsrecycle.com story).
The interim agreement followed the scrapping of Norfolk’s own £500 million energy-from-waste contract with Cory Wheelabrator in April 2014, following the withdrawal of PFI funding for the project.
‘Deliverable’
Councillor Rebecca Hopfensperger, Suffolk county council’s cabinet member for localities, environment and waste, said: “The county council, together with the Suffolk Waste Partnership, promised this project would be good for the tax payer, a good environmental solution and deliverable.
“We have met all of these promises. This year alone we are making an £8 million saving for Suffolk. The facility will reduce our carbon emissions, produce enough electricity for 30,000 homes and is on track to achieve the environmental gold standard of BREEAM excellence.
“We have proved the facility is deliverable in Suffolk by opening on time and on budget. The county council has shown that by acting in a business-like manner it can deliver what it promised.”
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Construction of the site, which also includes a visitor’s centre, was completed ‘on time and on budget’ with operations officially handed over to SITA UK by building contractor Lagan.
Eden Project
Process equipment was supplied by energy-from-waste specialist CNIM, while the building itself was designed by Grimshaw, the architectural company behind the Eden Project in Cornwall.
The Suffolk project has created 47 new jobs on site, while a further 200 could be created if a proposed ‘greenhouse project’ to utilise the plant’s surplus heat goes ahead.
Paul Leighton, plant manager for SITA UK, added: “After nearly three years of construction and comprehensive testing to make sure everything works as it should, we are really proud to have delivered this project on time, on budget and with an excellent health and safety record.”
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