Grundon Waste Management and Viridor have submitted a planning application to West Sussex county council for an energy from waste (EfW) facility and a transfer station with a combined capacity of 295,000 tonnes per annum.
The site already has planning permission for an EfW – granted to Grundon in 2015 by West Sussex council – but this needs updating “so that it reflects our latest thinking in terms of technology, design and layout”, the two companies said.
Plans for Viridor and Grundon to join together on the project were unveiled in September 2019 (see letsrecycle.com story), and the EfW is to be constructed at the Grundon-owned ‘Ford Circular Technology Park’ which is based in Ford, 10 miles west of Worthing.
Grundon and Viridor held a public consultation on the proposals for the two facilities in March and April 2020 and say they used the feedback to help finalise the application.
West Sussex county council will now carry out its own statutory consultation, providing a further opportunity for the public to comment on the plans.
The EfW plant will use gasification technology and will process 275,000 tonnes of household waste per annum.
‘Key milestone’
Ford EfW director Philip Atkinson, who is also a director at Grundon, said: “Today’s submission is a key milestone for us and a crucial step towards delivering this important scheme.
“This combined development will make a valuable contribution to both resource and energy efficiency”
“Finding ways to manage the waste we produce in a more sustainable way is vital. This combined development will make a valuable contribution to both resource and energy efficiency. It will also close a local capacity gap which has – until now – meant waste produced locally either goes to landfill or travels a great distance for processing – sometimes overseas.
“Managing this waste locally is not only a more effective way of treating waste but allows us to significantly reduce carbon emissions and put non-recyclable waste to work to generate energy”.
Stack
The facility will have a stack height of approximately 85 metres, and the main building itself will contain a tipping hall, waste bunker, boiler house, ash storage, turbine and flue gas treatment.
There will be separate structures for the transformer and electrical rooms and air-cooled condenser.
Discussions are also ongoing about using heat from the EfW plant.
History
The brownfield site already has planning permission for an EfW alongside a waste transfer facility and waste collection vehicle depot, both of which are currently operational.
Grundon received planning permission in 2014 for a Technology Park which included a proposal for an ERF along with a 60,000 tonne per year capacity materials recycling facility (MRF) (see letsrecycle.com story).
Grundon has operated a waste transfer station at the site since 2015 and Viridor has operated a MRF nearby for eleven years. This MRF already manages recyclable waste from homes across West Sussex through a contract with West Sussex county council.
West Sussex is currently without a major local disposal facility for residual waste. In December 2017 Britaniacrest and Seneca won a five year RDF export contract to take large volumes of waste under a county council contract (see letsrecycle.com story).
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Source: letsrecycle.com Waste Managment