A new large-scale combined heat and power energy from waste (EfW) facility near Sittingbourne in Kent, UK has successfully reached financial close. Mott MacDonald has been lenders’ technical advisor on the project, which is being developed by Wheelabrator Technologies (Wheelabrator) and will supply renewable electricity to the grid and renewable heat to an adjacent paper mill.
The 43MW Wheelabrator Kemsley facility will generate 344GWh of sustainable electricity with 400GWh of heat annually. The plant is also expected to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 163,000 tonnes per year when compared to landfill, plus prevent up to 550,000 tonnes of waste per annum from either going to landfill or being pre-treated and exported to European EfW plants.
Mott MacDonald provided technical and commercial due diligence during the project’s financing stage. The consultancy worked closely with Wheelabrator to analyse a full range of risks and provisions, including the plant solution, engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) delivery, testing and commissioning, operations and maintenance, bespoke fuel supply arrangements and heat off-take and the Contract for Difference regime.
The consultancy will now provide construction and operations monitoring services to the lenders in an ongoing role. Constructions Industrielles de la Méditerranée S.A. has been awarded the EPC contract for the project, while Wheelabrator will own, operate and maintain the facility once the commissioning phase has been completed.
Russell Dallas, Mott MacDonald’s project director, said: “Wheelabrator Kemsley is the first large-scale EfW plant in the UK to reach financial close that is supported by the Contract for Difference mechanism, the new government support scheme for renewable energy projects. It is expected to help decarbonise the paper mill’s production process by replacing part of its gas-fired steam supply, supporting the government’s growing efforts to cut carbon emissions from the manufacturing sector. The project is also the country’s first fully merchant EfW facility to be delivered using project finance.”
The Wheelabrator Kemsley plant is expected to become operational in 2019.