GIB to invest in UK waste treatment plant

A new £319.5 million (€409 million) waste treatment plant in North Yorkshire, UK is to receive a £33.1 million investment from the UK Green Investment Bank (GIB).

The project is expected to process up to 320,000 tonnes of household, commercial and industrial waste per year. It will divert more than 7 million tonnes of waste from landfill over its lifetime and generate 203GWh of electricity annually – enough to power over 40,000 households.

The plant will be built at an existing landfill and quarry site by contractor AmeyCespa, which will operate the plant on completion. This will be AmeyCespa's largest waste project to date.

Known as the 'PPP' project, it is being developed by North Yorkshire County Council and City of York Council, alongside sponsors AmeyCespa, Aberdeen UK Infrastructure Partners and Equitix. GIB will provide long-term loan financing and an equity bridge loan alongside Nord/LB, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking, Siemens Bank, KfW-PIEX and the European Investment Bank (EIB). This is the first joint venture between GIB and EIB.

Features of the plant will include:
• A mechanical treatment facility that will recover metal, paper and plastic for recycling
• An onsite anaerobic digestion plant to treat organic waste which will generate around 8GWh of renewable electricity per year
• An energy-from-waste facility that will produce steam to feed an electricity generating turbine, generating 203GWh of electricity – enough to supply the equivalent of more than 40,000 homes.

The project will process all of the residual waste from North Yorkshire County Council and the City of York with the remaining capacity of the plant used to process commercial and industry waste sourced by AmeyCespa.

'This project is an example of how local authorities can improve recycling and generate significant amounts of renewable power from household waste,' says Shaun Kingsbury, CEO of UK GIB.