Dive Brief:
- Wheelabrator Technologies has a reached financial close on its Kemsley waste-to-energy (WTE) facility in Kent, U.K. The plant will have capacity to process 606,000 tons of waste per year.
- The £340 million project (approximately $448 million USD) will be a combined heat and steam facility with the potential to generate 43 MW of electricity. It will also provide steam heat to the adjacent Kemsley Paper Mill.
- Preparation work has begun and full construction is set to start in August. Wheelabrator aims for the facility to be operational by early 2019 and expects to create more than 40 full-time jobs.
Dive Insight:
Reaching this point has been many years in the making. The project received an Environmental Permit by the U.K.'s Environment Agency in 2011 and the Kent City Council granted planning permission in March 2012. Wheelabrator was awarded a 15-year Contract for Difference with the U.K. government covering roughly 50% of power output in February 2015. Waste will be coming from throughout Kent and South East England, much of it at fixed prices with multiple waste management companies.
"To achieve financial close is a significant milestone and I’m very proud of our team for making this possible, and excited to welcome a second facility in the U.K. to our fleet," said President and CEO Robert Boucher in a statement.
Recently, Wheelabrator has faced challenges with opposition to an ash landfill expansion in Massachusetts and confusion over a rejected bid for a disposal contract in Virginia. However the company still remains the second largest WTE business in the U.S. The Kemsley facility will join their portfolio of 16 WTE plants in the U.S. and U.K.
