Organic waste specialists TEG Environmental and energy company Alkane Energy have been awarded preferred bidder status for the first anaerobic digestion plant to be created under the Welsh Government's (WG's) programme for local authorities to recycle food waste into electricity and fertiliser.

The award means that the TEG consortium will build a £7.5m facility to provide a recycling service to three councils, known as the North East Wales Hub. North East Wales is the first of seven Welsh hubs to have concluded their search to identify a partner to build an anaerobic digestion plant for the treatment of household food waste. The North East Wales Hub comprises Denbighshire County Council, Flintshire County Council and Conwy County Borough Council. WG will contribute £1.4m towards the total cost of the project.  

The planned site is a former abattoir at Rhuallt, near St Asaph.  The plant will have the capacity to process 20,000 tonnes of food waste per year, with at least 11,000 tonnes p.a. coming from the three local authorities in the Hub. The remainder of the waste will come from other local authorities and businesses that generate food waste.  Planning and Environmental permit applications are expected to be submitted this autumn and if these are successful, construction will commence in the spring of 2012 with the facility becoming operational the following year.

The site is expected to generate nearly 1MW of renewable power, sufficient for approximately 2,000 homes as well as providing all requirements to run the site itself.  The plant will also provide around 19,000 tonnes of organic fertiliser, sufficient to meet the nutrient requirements of crops growing on1,000 ha of land and will be used as a low cost fertiliser on local farms.

TEG and Alkane will form a joint venture company for the project, to be known as NEAT Biogas Limited, with TEG owning 70% of the company and Alkane 30%.  NEAT will fund and operate the facility, which is expected to bring in revenues of approximately £2m. p.a. during the contract term of 15 years.

TEG and Alkane will supply all plant and equipment to NEAT Biogas, which will operate and maintain the facility. The TEG Group subsidiary NOFCO (Natural Organic Fertiliser Company) will manage the placement of the fertiliser under a separate sub-contract.

Chief Executive of TEG, Mick Fishwick said: "We are extremely pleased to have been awarded this prestigious long term contract by the North East Wales Hub and we look forward to working with the Hub and to constructing our first AD facility in Wales. It is also very pleasing to see our partnership with Alkane reach fruition and we look forward to working with Alkane in our new joint venture company."

Denbighshire County Council Lead member for Environment Councillor Sharon Frobisher said "We are delighted to make this announcement. The facility is a vital piece in the jigsaw to enable us to recycle even more food waste from our households. Our new AD facility will be good for the environment, because it will generate electricity from the food waste that people have thrown away".

Alkane Chief Executive Neil O'Brien said:  "We are delighted at this award of Preferred Bidder for North East Wales. This type of operation is a recognised solution to the UK Governments stated objectives in complying with both EU landfill targets and de-carbonising the UK electricity market and the electricity generated will benefit from premium selling prices through the Feed-in Tariff scheme. This move into AD further broadens Alkane's business operations and strengthens our cleantech credentials. The Alkane/TEG collaboration deal is proving its worth combining our heritage in waste management and energy generation. There is a strong match of the skills of the two teams and we continue to work on a number of other AD projects."

 

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Further information from:

Ann Gronback

Solus Public Relations

Tel: 01565 755713 / Mobile 07768 885468

E-mail: ann@soluspr.co.uk