Artist's impression of Viridor's Peterborough energy-from-waste plant

Peterborough City Council has granted Viridor planning permission to build an 85,000 tonne energy-from-waste (EfW) plant in Fengate, Peterborough.

Yesterday (22 January), Peterborough City Council Planning and Environmental Protection Committee approved Viridor’s Section 73 application with one abstention and no objections.

Viridor was selected as the preferred bidder for the £76 million, 30-year residual waste contract in August, in the hope that its 65,000-tonne incinerator (now extended to 85,000 tonnes) could reduce the amount of non-recyclable waste sent to landfill by more than 94 per cent and produce 7.25 megawatt hours of electricity, enough to power about 15 per cent of all homes in Peterborough.

According to a spokesperson from Viridor, the increase in capacity was due to the projected increase in the size of the city. “The city is expected to grow significantly in the next 30-40 years so by making the capacity of the plant larger, we are future-proofing it should waste arisings rise as the population rises.”

A secondary reason for extending the size of the plant, according to Viridor, is to cater for a ‘small amount’ of commercial and industrial (C&I) waste from businesses, which currently goes to landfill.

Viridor’s Head of Projects Robert Ryan, welcomed the council’s decision to approve the amended plans, saying: “We proposed changes to the existing planning permission to maximise the benefits from the proposal to the council and the local area. Our proposals will result in additional efficiency from the plant and a smaller building, all of which contribute towards to cutting the city’s waste disposal costs and carbon footprint.”

Councillor Matthew Lee, Deputy Leader of Peterborough City Council, added: "We are very pleased that Viridor's proposed amendments to the existing planning permission have been accepted by the planning committee. We very much look forward to signing contracts with Viridor in early February so that we can push ahead with construction and ultimately commissioning the new facility in 2015.

"The sooner we can do so, the sooner we can bring the era of burying our waste in landfills, which will not only save the city council - and therefore all taxpayers - millions of pounds, but also cut the city's CO2 production by around 10,000 tonnes per year compared to landfill - equivalent to taking 2,800 diesel Mondeos off the road permanently."

According to Viridor, the plant is expected to be online by 2015 and will create ‘hundreds’ of construction jobs and 25 permanent jobs during operation.

Overcapacity

The Peterborough plant is one of several plants to be proposed for the area: Peterborough Renewable Energy Ltd (PRE) is planning to build a 650,000-tonne gasification plant in Fengate and Cory Wheelabrator’s controversial 260,000 tonne facility at King’s Lynn, Norfolk had been granted planning permission but is currently facing a public enquiry.

According to the most recent residual waste figures, Peterborough City Council householders only generated 43,927 tonnes of residual waste in 2011-12, a number which is expected to decrease as Peterborough aims for a 2020 recycling target of 65 per cent (up from the current rate of 43 per cent), adding to fears that the area could soon be facing problems of incineration ‘overcapacity’.

‘Antiquated’ plant

Speaking to Resource, Richard Olive, from Friends of the Earth Peterborough acknowledged his disappointment in the decision: “We were surprised by the council’s lack of knowledge in terms of the technology proposed and the alternatives to it, and we were disappointed that no one objected. Friends of the Earth have been involved in this application for 10 years and we’ve issued so much information to all councillors, numerous emails especially to the scrutiny and the planning committees, and we would have thought that they would have been quite well educated at this point.”

Listing the Waterbeach MBT/AD facility and Peterborough Renewable Energy (PRE) Ltd’s gasification plant as viable alternatives, Olive went on to emphasise that the council should first be looking to recycle more of its waste.

“Peterborough currently has about 43 per cent residual waste, and we estimate that about half of that could be recycled, if only they invested in the facilities.

“We do wonder why the council are proposing to build such an antiquated type of plant. No incinerator smaller than 180,000 tonnes per year is considered economically viable. Indeed, rather than saving the council money, our consultants estimate that the Viridor plant will cost an extra £3.6 million to run, over three times the cost of landfilling, but that didn’t come up in the meeting at all.”

Residual waste reports

Concerns of the UK and Europe’s preference for long-term incineration contracts have mounted recently as both Eunomia and the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives have released reports stating that the numbers of incinerators in the UK and EU have the capacity to burn ‘more than the non-recyclable waste generated’ and could ‘threaten’ recycling rates as recyclable material would be needed to ‘feed’ the plants.

However, Viridor has stated that it is ‘not concerned’ about potential feedstock or overcapacity issues as it ‘sized the facility to fulfil the needs of the council and provide capacity for commercial/industrial waste in the local area’.

Read more about the Peterborough energy-from-waste plant.