A consortium of Spanish environmental technology firm Ros Roca and Dutch engineering company Imtech have signed a 10 million deal with Shanks to provide an anaerobic digestion (AD) plant. London-based engineering firm BioWatt, meanwhile, has been signed up to design and build a composting plant at the same site.
The AD and composting plants will both form part of the South Kirkby facility, which is being developed as part of a 25-year, 750 million PFI contract that was awarded to Shanks by Wakefield council last week (see letsrecycle.com story). The facility will handle 230,000 tonnes of waste collected by Wakefield council each year.
AD contract
The AD plant is expected to handle 65,000 tonnes of waste per year and produce enough biogas energy to power around 3,000 homes, according to RRIJV. The AD process will also produce soil conditioner for use on farmland.
Design of the AD biogas plant is expected to be completed by RRIJV in March 2013, before construction firm Kier Infrastructure and Overseas takes on the building work. It is expected to be fully completed by summer 2015.
The plant is part of a wider agreed plan to increase the landfill diversion rate of Wakefield districts waste towards 90%, according to RRIJV.
Nick Small, waste and energy business sector manager at Imtech, said: We are delighted with this contract win and the partnership opportunity it provides for RRIJV and Shanks Waste Management. This is a prestigious project and we are all excited to begin work on it.
Kevin Clarke, UK general manager at Ros Roca added: This will be a great project for everyone involved to work on. Its really reassuring to know that this Wakefield renewable energy plant will be beneficial to home owners in the UK.
Composting contract
The composting plant to be built by BioWatt at the South Kirkby facility will have the capacity to handle 25,000 tonnes of green waste each year from Wakefield council kerbside collections and household waste recycling sites. It is due to be completed in 2015, according to BioWatt.
Since December 2012, BioWatt has been the licensed technology partner for the Hot Rot Organics Solutions recycling technology.
BioWatt chief executive, James Lloyd, said: We are immensely proud to be working alongside Shanks Group and their selected contractors to deliver this landmark project.
“The contract represents an important milestone for BioWatt Engineering as our first design and build contract, just four months after the companys formal incorporation. This will cement our position as a leading supplier of complex integrated engineering projects in the AD and composting sector. We are confident that the next few months will be equally rewarding as a number of projects are nearing the latter stages.
Wakefield facility
The entire South Kirkby facility will segregate a variety of materials from residual waste for recycling, including metals, some plastics, aggregates and glass. It will then sort the remaining waste into an organic fraction and a fraction to produce refuse derived fuel. The fuel will be sent to a multi-fuel plant being developed by SSE at the site of the nearby coal-fired Ferrybridge Power Station.
The organic fraction of the residual waste will meanwhile be treated using an autoclave, which has already been built and which Shanks said had undergone rigorous testing. The autoclave will further separate out metals, hard plastics and glass for recycling before sterilising the material. It will then be fed into the AD plant where it will be converted into gas for renewable energy generation and also a digestate.
Shanks estimates that 90% of the waste fed into the facility will be recovered and recycled with the remaining 10% sent to landfill.
A separate onsite materials recycling facility (MRF) will sort mixed recyclables collected from Wakefields households, with the technology for the MRF provided by Canadian manufacturer Machinex.
Wakefield council said the facilities will help to increase its recycling rate to a minimum of 52%. The council achieved a recycling rate of 39.3% in 2011/12.
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