Suez marks opening of Suffolk EfW

The energy recovery facility, located at Great Blakenham near Ipswich, has the capacity to treat 269,000 tonnes of residual waste per year – generating enough electricity to power around 30,000 households.

The plant has been built as part of a £1 billion, 25-year residual waste management contract signed between Suffolk county council and Suez – then SITA UK – in October 2010 – with the facility granted planning permission in July 2011 (see letsrecycle.com story).

Waste deliveries to the site began during commissioning in June last year, while control of the plant was handed over to Suez at the end of 2014. Until that time, residual waste generated in Suffolk was sent to Viridor’s neighbouring Masons landfill site in Great Blakenham.

Contract

Under the contract, Suffolk county council will pay for the treatment of up to 170,000 tonnes of residual waste per year at the plant, and must work with Suez to identify alternative customers if it fails to provide sufficient feedstock.

The opening ceremony was attended by Lady Clare Euston, the Countess of Euston and Lord Lieutenant of Suffolk, who congratulated Suez and the council on the design of the plant.

Speaking at the official unveiling on Friday, the council’s assistant director for environment Bryn Griffiths, who was charged with overseeing the development of the facility, said it would help the council avoid ‘dire’ landfill costs.

He said: “Our journey started about 10 years ago when I asked our accountants to produce a graph to show the impact on the council’s budget of continuing to landfill Suffolk’s waste, as taxes went up and up. The result was dire and the graph became known as ‘the scary graph’.”

Mr Griffiths added: “Last year the county council took an £8 million saving out of the council’s budget and over the 25 year contract the projected saving is about £350 million. But this project was more than saving money. Suffolk county council’s waste service is also about good environmental outcomes.”

Others in attendance included county council leader Colin Noble, David Palmer-Jones, chief executive of Suez’s UK operations, facility architect Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, and Jean-Louis Chaussade, chief executive of Suez Environnement.

Capacity

Asked whether he thought the region would still need 269,000 tonnes of residual waste capacity by 2040, Mr Chaussade told letsrecycle.com that the outcome was ‘not certain’.

He said: “It’s not sure in this area if the population will not grow, so waste reduction is one option but it’s not certain. In this facility we have the possibility to have waste from other counties and from industry.”

Mr Chaussade added that he welcomed the discussion at EU level of plans to introduce a recycling target of 70% by 2030 in its reformed circular economy package, despite the UK government’s reluctance to accept the objective.

He continued: “The circular economy is something we want to see happen. The UK’s performance is already quite high in Europe because of policy introduced by government in terms of landfill tax and the recovery target. Clearly the UK will go on to recycle more and more, so a diversion factor of 70% is achievable.”

Norfolk

The Great Blakenham facility will also source 40,000 tonnes of refuse from neighbouring Norfolk county council, after Defra’s approval of a two-year interim agreement in September 2014. The agreement is projected to save both councils around £1 million (see letsrecycle.com story).

It follows the scrapping of Norfolk’s own £500 million energy-from-waste contract with Cory Wheelabrator in April 2014, after the government withdrew PFI funding for the project.

Architect Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, who was commissioned to design the look of the Great Blakenham plant, suggested that Norfolk council should have tried to emulate Suffolk’s partnership with Suez.

He said: “We see with the neighbouring authority things seem to have fallen apart there. It’s possibly because they needed a better joint partnership approach to the whole thing.”