Viridor and CNIM announce handover of USD344 million Energy Recovery Facility in UK

Viridor announced that a major milestone has been achieved in the construction of Viridor’s GBP252 million (USD344.63 million) Avonmouth Energy Recovery Facility, near Bristol, with contractors CNIM officially handing over the site in December.

The plant, which is currently receiving non-recyclable waste from Somerset Waste Partnership (up to 120,000 tonnes) and the West of England Waste Partnership (120,000 tonnes) as part of the commissioning process, has been designed to divert 320,000 tonnes of this residual waste away from landfill. The ERF will also generate up to 307GWh of electricity annually which will power the facility itself and export enough energy to power the equivalent of 84,000 homes.

Viridor CEO Kevin Bradshaw said, "The opportunity to have a Viridor facility, using non-recyclable waste to generate the heat and power, which will allow us to recycle and reprocess more plastic here in the UK. Optimising resource and energy efficiency and providing the infrastructure investment needed to make a meaningful contribution to the UK’s green economy continues to be the driving force of our business strategy".

The Avonmouth ERF forms part of the wider Avonmouth Resource Recovery Centre, including a GBP65 million (USD89 million) investment in a plastic reprocessing plant currently under construction which will draw heat and power from the ERF.