Broad Energy welcomes European ruling

The developer behind the proposed Energy Recovery Facility (ERF) at Buttington Quarry has welcomed a European ruling that producing energy from waste can be counted as a sustainable economic activity.

Analysis of the process by consultancy PwC for FEAD (the European federation of waste management and environmental services) concluded that waste incineration for energy recovery was different to burning waste for disposal.

PwC said producing energy from waste could fulfil environmental objectives by diverting non-recyclable waste from landfill, encouraging more recycling and saving CO2 emissions.

Broad Energy is currently consulting with the public about its plans to build an ERF at Buttington, near Welshpool. 

Alistair Hilditch-Brown, Chief Executive of Broad Energy, welcomed the findings.

He said: “Our own data shows that when it's built, Buttington Energy Recovery Facility will provide an innovative way to significantly reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill while generating low-carbon energy at the same time. It will be a significant step in the right direction towards helping Wales to become a zero-waste nation by 2050.

“It’s great to have this backed up with independent analysis from PwC and the sector-leading European federation of waste management and environmental services. 

“Buttington ERF will be a cutting-edge facility using the latest technologies to produce a significant amount of green energy. We know from the ongoing public consultation that some people have questioned the sustainability of the energy recovery process. We know that this will go some way towards alleviating some of those concerns.”

The proposed ERF at Buttington will use state-of-the-art technology, provided by Hitachi Zosen Inova, which has a significant track record in building such facilities. It will be capable of processing non-hazardous, non-recyclable waste and transforming it into 12.8-megawatts of low-carbon electricity annually, which will be exported to the National Grid.  

The scheme will create 300 jobs during its construction phase and will employ 30 members of permanent staff once fully operational. 

The public have until Monday 26 October to submit their comments on plans for the development. 

Speaking about the PwC analysis, FEAD president Peter Kurth said: “By diverting non-recyclable, residual waste from landfilling, by ensuring its environmentally sound treatment, and by avoiding the use of fossil fuels, EfW under the R1 criteria is a key activity to more recycling and to saving CO2 emissions.”