Sita wins operating contract for Amétyst biogas plant

Via its subsidiary Sita, Suez Environment has been awarded a €150 million operating contract for the Amétyst anaerobic digestion plant in Montpellier, France, for a period of 10 years.

Sita has operated the Amétyst plant since 2008, which will benefit from a €10 million investment programme funded by Sita. This investment will increase its electricity and heat production by 50%. Waste materials with a high calorific value (such as plastic) will be transformed into solid recovered fuel (SRF) by Sita and used to power cement works as a substitute for fossil fuels.

Under this new contract, Sita will also recover local biowaste and household waste at Amétyst in order to produce 33,500 tonnes of certified compost a year. The development of this new business line, in combination with improved energy recovery of waste, will consequently reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill, with more than 51% of local waste transformed into new resources.

Recovering waste at Amétyst in the form of renewable energy will provide Montpellier and the surrounding area with heat through a district heating system, supply the EDF network with electricity and meet the majority of the plant's energy needs. As a stakeholder in the energy transition, in 2013, Sita France produced over 2 million MWh of heat and more than 1.5 million MWh of electricity.

Christophe Cros, senior executive VP of Suez Environment in charge of Waste Europe, comments: 'Through these types of innovations, the Amétyst green energy production plant is becoming a European benchmark in the anaerobic digestion of household waste and biowaste, with unrivalled performance for this type of facility. The new resources we will produce at Amétyst will secure the essential resources needed for the future.'