The firm announced on Thursday (March 21) that it has started working in partnership with energy firm E.ON and Cardiff council to explore the initiative, which would see buildings in central Cardiff receive non-fossil fuel energy for heating or cooling.
According to Viridor, should a heat-producing system be built, it would be the first of its kind in Wales.
In February 2013, Viridor was announced as the preferred bidder for a 25-year waste contract with Prosiect Gwyrrd, a partnership of Newport, Caerphilly, Cardiff, Monmouthshire and Vale of Glamorgan councils. The contract would see the firm process 172,000 tonnes per annum of the partnerships residual waste at the Trident Park facility (see letsrecycle.com story).
The merchant facility will have the capacity to handle 350,000 tonnes of waste per year and produce 30 megawatts (MW) of energy, although adding a heat generating element could generate an extra 20MW to its output.
Chris Jonas, Viridors head of strategic development said: Whilst these are early stages, we are very pleased to be working in partnership with E.ON and Cardiff council to explore this innovative solution.
In addition to the 30MW of electricity the facility will generate, enough to supply the equivalent of up to 50,000 homes, the heat and high-grade steam to support a district heating network will add an additional 20MW to the plants energy output.
Plans for the 150 million plant at Trident Park in the Splott region of the city were granted planning permission in June 2010 (see letsrecycle.com story). The plans were initially refused by the council in July 2009 over concerns about the amount of waste that would have to brought into the area to meet the plant’s capacity, as well as issues over the disposal of fly-ash from the site.
Veolia withdrawal
Having lost out on preferred bidder status to Viridor for the Prosiect Gwyrrd contract, waste management firm Veolia Environmental Services also announced last week that it was withdrawing its planning appeal for an energy recovery facility at Llanwern near Newport.
A spokesman for the firm said that an energy recovery facility would no longer be viable without the Prosiect Gwyrrd contract to process residual waste
Planning permission for the Llanwern facility was rejected by Newport council in July 2012 due to ecological and transport issues (see letsrecycle.com story), a decision which Veolia was previously intending to appeal against.
A Veolia spokesman said: We can confirm we have withdrawn our planning appeal regarding the development of an Energy Recovery Facility at Llanwern having concluded that such a facility would not be viable outside the Project Gwyrdd procurement process for which a preferred bidder has already been selected.
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