Covanta Energy Corporation (Covanta), a subsidiary of Covanta Holding Corporation, is planning to construct around $575 million plant to convert waste to energy in Welsh coalmining district. The plant will supply electricity for around 180,000 homes in Wales. It will create 600 jobs, and decrease the need for municipal, commercial and industrial waste landfill sites. The company expects that the plant will be operational by 2014, subject to approval by local authorities.
The proposed waste to energy plant will be on an existing railway line, which will link it to rail-operated waste transfer stations across Wales. Transporting waste by rail will decrease the need for road haulage of waste.
Around 500 jobs will be created during construction of the plant, which will have a full time staff of around 100 when it is operational.
Covanta has had detailed discussions about the project with Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) and International Business Wales (IBW), and will begin consulting February 2, 2009, with the local population and stakeholders in the area of Merthyr Tydfil, in the heart of south central Wales.
Covanta is also investigating the possibility that residents and businesses in neighboring communities could buy electricity at significantly below market rates, and that lower cost energy and waste heat can be made available to attract other investors to the area.
Malcolm Chilton, Covanta’s UK managing director, said that the plant will operate cleanly and well within the most stringent environmental standards.
We already supply millions of homes with clean energy from non-recyclable waste, and we are proposing a plant which will be sized to meet the needs of Wales, Chilton said. It will take approximately 750,000 tons of waste a year and generate about 70 Megawatts of electricity.
The plant will greatly reduce the need for Welsh local authorities to send non-recyclable waste to landfill sites. The cost of using landfill sites is also a huge financial burden to councils. Using waste to produce energy is a very cost-effective solution to these problems. The plant will also help cut greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change — by displacing the carbon dioxide produced by fossil fuel generation and reducing long-term emissions of methane gas from landfill sites that would otherwise be required.
Wales is very pleased that an industry leader such as Covanta is investing in Wales and will play a part in making Wales a world leader in dealing with renewable energy and treatment of both household and industrial waste, said Geraint Jones, chief executive officer, Americas, of IBW, the economic development arm of the WAG. Covanta’track record in the Waste to Energy field is second to none.