The role of Energy from Waste in a modern sustainable resource management economy

Posted by Adam Read, Practice Director: Resource Efficiency & Waste Management on 6 January 2012

The UK produces approximately 100 million tonnes of solid waste every year (excluding construction and demolition materials), and even if we hit 70% recycling levels that leaves at least 30 million tonnes of waste to be managed.  Waste reduction efforts and exceeding targets where possible will bring this figure down further, but the implication is that there is plenty of residual waste that needs to be managed, and landfill is no longer a viable or acceptable solution given a number of current EU Directives.

Historical trends?

Waste has been combusted for hundreds of years, sometimes providing heat in the process, but frequently simply as a means to reduce its volume, before the ash residues were disposed to land.  In the UK in 1991, there were about 230 licences for “incinerators” treating a range of different waste streams. However, with concerns increasing about public health and environmental pollution, the Waste Incineration Directive (WID) (2000/76/EC) was introduced with the subsequent reduction in number and throughput of these facilities in the UK in particular.  By 1993, only 2 years later, less than 30 incinerators remained in the UK, and more closed thereafter. 

 

This decline in incineration capacity in the UK mirrored an increasing public awareness and concern about these facilities, with NIMBY campaigns generating heated debate about the emissions from these plants and the need to feed these facilities at the expense of local recycling. However, since the mid-1990s, a modest number of new facilities have been opened, with much cleaner operating techniques, and a legal requirement to generate energy (electricity, heat or both) from the combustion process.  With the term incineration fast becoming taboo, and with the need to generate heat, power or electricity, facility operators began to call their facilities “waste to energy plants”, “energy from waste plants”, “resource recovery facilities”, “green power facilities” or a “power and recycling centres”.  

 

New hope?

Recent months have brought some cause for optimism to the UK energy from waste sector.  Nine incineration facilities have come through the planning system successfully in 2011, including those which had been held up in the appeals process, such as Viridor’s planned facility in Ardley, Oxfordshire, which had been plagued by opposition for many months. 

 

New players have also come onto the market, including American energy company Covanta, which has received its first planning approval in the UK for a combustion facility in Buckinghamshire. Another UK newcomer is German company MVV Umwelt, who in March reached financial close on a major EfW project in South West Devon.  They will build, operate and maintain a CHP facility taking in 245,000 tonnes of residual waste per year, to supply steam and electricity to the Devonport naval base under a 25-year energy services agreement with the Ministry of Defence.

 

Some of these successes have been made possible by the Infrastructure Planning Commission, which has taken planning decisions for large facilities away from local authorities, and is therefore much less susceptible to local opposition groups.  However, this Commission is being replaced and, for now, waste decisions remain a local planning issue, apart from when they ask for the Secretary of State’s intervention or when decisions are appealed, which are more often than not for these large residual waste treatment and energy / heat production facilities. In addition, several long-awaited projects have finally begun full scale operations, including the impressive Cory Riverside facility, processing much of central London’s waste delivered to the site by barges on the Thames.

Previous estimates suggest that £7.5 billion of capital investment in waste infrastructure is required to meet EU landfill diversion targets by 2020. This new infrastructure could generate 25,000 permanent new jobs and add £2 billion to the UK's GDP. Perhaps the UK’s appetite for waste combustion facilities is changing?

 

They are bankable, offer cheaper solutions than other residual waste options, can help generate local heat and power, and if well sited and with good local engagement from the outset can prove to be a community asset. We hope so, because the UK energy agenda needs more renewable production and the UK waste sector remains in need of additional capacity to process society’s discards.  So combustion facilities offering heat and energy outputs just seem to make sense.  To date, in the UK, nearly all of the developments have been led by waste companies, notably Veolia and SITA.  In recent times, however, there have been signs of growing interest from the wider energy industry, with E.On (Kemsley) and SSE (Ferrybridge) leading the way, but we still think more could be done by the energy sector.

The energy sector?

Why are energy companies not more interested in energy from waste solutions?  An obvious concern is the uncertainty of gaining planning permission, though we imagine similar complaints would arise whatever the energy generation technique.  A more reasonable concern might be a lack of experience on handling waste, which is significantly less homogeneous than traditional fossil fuels.  However, the growth in the generation of RDFs, which are intrinsically more consistent, could begin to reduce that barrier.

 

Given a number of large-scale local authority procurement projects for a fuel preparation and separately for fuel usage, the opportunity for energy companies to come to the market and offer up their expertise and experience is likely to grow.  For example, the North London Waste Authority is currently procuring both RDF production and usage contracts and the energy companies have been engaged.  The UK is currently exporting 1 million tpa of RDF and planned production is going to grow significantly, so there is an opportunity right now for aggressive energy companies to enter this market and secure the feedstock they need.

Given that the majority of RDF is organic material, this export route is a loss of renewable energy potential.  Why are we exporting this fuel to the Netherlands and Germany, when we need to import so much of our energy and our energy security is at risk? This is where more leadership from UK Government is required.  DECC and Defra could certainly help to encourage energy from waste solutions.  They could recognise the combustion of waste as a renewable fuel source and develop a specifically targeted incentive scheme which doesn’t group it with small biomass boilers or offshore wind farms. Perhaps this is on the agenda in 2012? This would be a massive step forward for the UK waste derived energy sector.

Clearly, combustion is not just a solution for a waste problem; it can be part of the solution to the UK energy security and climate change agendas, disposing of a waste stream that cannot profitably yield further recyclates and which is a ready and stable fuel source. It makes sense, we can all see it. Let’s hope Government can bite the bullet and provide the direction, leadership and support to drive the growth of this sector in the coming months.

Upcoming conference

Many of these issues will be addressed at a 2 day conference in London on 22 and 23 February 2012, which will focus on energy efficiency and energy delivery for energy from waste based solutions, see http://www.efwlondon.eu/ for more information. I will be part of a panel looking at how localism could impact on the EfW sector, and I will be keen to review how EfW building design, community engagement planning, and localised facilities could be key to securing new EfW capacity across the UK.

If you have any comments on the role of EfW in a modern UK economy then let me know…