October 2011: Three bids have been submitted to the North London Waste Authority (NLWA) to generate energy from the 300,000 tonnes of solid recovered fuel (SRF) created from the 500,000 to 600,000 tonnes of North London’s waste that cannot be recycled or composted.
The NWLA is a statutory waste authority managing the disposal of municipal waste from seven London local authorities (Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Islington, Hackney, Haringey and Waltham Forest) and this procurement is one of two that NLWA is running to provide a “long term and sustainable waste management solution for North London”. A separate procurement is being run that will involve recycling or composting half of North London’s waste, producing the fuel and minimising the landfilling of municipal waste.
The contract for the use of SRF will be available from 2015 for up to 25 years and the NLWA states that it “is striving to achieve the most efficient form of energy recovery. This could be with the fuel being used in a Combined Heat and Power (‘CHP’) plant, located close to where the energy demand is.”
The NWLA have provided updated details of the three bids, all of which utilise CHP technology on the following news release.
- Covanta Energy project is the only one based in London and is proposing a Combined Heat and Power plant at the Tate & Lyle sugar refinery site at Silvertown, East London. The Covanta proposal involves the transport by barge of SRF from Edmonton to Silvertown and this will support the further development of London rivers for freight transport use. Covanta will shortly begin consultations with the local community and relevant authorities ahead of a planning application in mid 2012.
- E.ON/Wheelabrator Technologies is proposing a CHP plant at DS Smith Paper’s site at Kemsley Mill, Sittingbourne, Kent.
- Veolia Environmental Services (UK) wants a CHP enabled power plant at an existing industrial site in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire.
The winning proposal will be selected from one of the three shortlisted candidates during the next 12 months using an evaluation framework that focuses on the quality and cost of the solution.
Further information on how SRF is produced is set out by the NWLA here.