Newly-merged waste firm Renewi has won a 20-year contract to supply refuse derived fuel (RDF) to the new Ferrybridge Multifuel 2 (FM2) facility currently under construction in West Yorkshire.
Renewi, created in March through the merger of Shanks Group plc and Van Gansewinkel Groep B.V., will supply 50,000 tonnes of RDF a year to the FM2 facility, which is being built by energy company SSE in partnership with Hitachi Zosen Inova, the principal contractor.
Expected to be fully operational by Summer 2019, when the contract with Renewi begins, the FM2 facility will start commissioning at the end of 2018. The facility in Ferrybridge will largely be supplied with RDF from Renewi’s facilities in Wakefield, Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotheram (BDR) and Derby, the close proximity of which will result in reduced transport costs and C02 emissions.
The FM2 facility will also receive a ‘significant portion’ of the 150,000 tonnes of waste collected per year in Bradford, if Leeds-based waste firm Associate Waste Management (AWM) wins a new 12-year waste treatment contract from Bradford City Council, for which it was named preferred bidder in April.
Located next to SSE's flagship Ferrybridge Multifuel 1 (FM1) facility, which opened in 2015, the company hopes that the FM2 facility will make a low-carbon contribution to the UK’s electricity supply through the green energy it will generate, as well as reduce the amount of residual waste going to landfill. The facility, when up and running, will generate around 70 megawatts of electricity, equivalent to that needed to power 170,000 homes.
James Priestley, Managing Director of Renewi’s Municipal Division, said: “One of our key recovery initiatives in the Municipal Division is to secure stable long- term outlets for refuse derived fuel (RDF) so we are delighted to have signed this important contract.
“It provides a long-term off-take outlet for a number of our PFI contracts, which were previously exposed to market volatility. We look forward to the completion of FM2 and to supplying our high-quality fuel to generate green energy.”
The new deal represents another step in the group’s expansion, with over 8,000 employees in nine countries, and follows the recent securing of a one-year contract to supply the AEB energy-from-waste (EfW) facility in Amsterdam with 32,000 tonnes of RDF which will contribute to providing heat and electricity to buildings in Amsterdam.
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