The 436,000-tonne facility, due to be finished in 2027, will take waste from a “range of local and regional waste management companies” which it says could create more than 49 megawatts of electricity per year, or enough to power more than 80,000 homes
The Walsall facility, on former industrial land on Fryers Road, will use the waste burned to heat homes under new ambitions announced by the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA).
Encyclis outlined that it will build, own and operate the facility, the first site to be 100% owned by the company. Hitachi Zosen Inova will be the principal contractor, with construction of the facility to begin next month.
Brown field site
The plant is being built on eight acres of derelict land, which was initially supported with £7.5m by the authority’s ‘brownfield first’ programme to regenerate the area’s derelict industrial sites.
Up to 450 jobs will be contracted during the construction phase of the plant and 50 direct jobs once it is fully operational. The target for completion is 2027.
Cllr Ian Courts, WMCA portfolio holder for housing and land and leader of Solihull council, said: “We know that achieving net zero by 2041 was a bold and ambitious statement for the region to make. But projects such as this can help us get there.
“I’m pleased to see our non-hazardous land-fill waste being used to generate electricity and heat for local homes in Walsall at this brand new energy-from-waste plant.
“It’s also great to see vacant land being regenerated to deliver a project that will help us move from our dependency on fossil fuels to a cleaner, greener future for the region.”
Portfolio
The site will be the seventh EfW facility for Encyclis in the UK and Ireland. Other sites under construction include the Earls Gate site in Scotland and the Protos site in Cheshire.
Facilities online it its portfolio include one in Dublin, the Leicestershire EfW in partnership with Biffa, and Rookery South, Bedfordshire.
Energy from waste
Proponents of EfW incinerators hail them as one of the only methods of energy generation which reduce greenhouse gases.
They generate electricity by burning general waste, including plastics, to create superheated steam which generates a turbine.
The benefits are they divert household waste from landfill, reducing the release of methane, as well as offsetting the need to burn fossil fuels for energy, and enable the recovery of metals for recycling and ash for the construction industry.
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