Pennon in rubbish agreement

11th Mar 2011 07:56

Water group Pennon said its Viridor Oxfordshire subsidiary has won a 25-year residual waste treatment contract with Oxfordshire County Council.The contract requires financing, construction, and operation of a new Energy from Waste (EfW) plant at Viridor's site at Ardley near Bicester in Oxfordshire. The plan is to divert around 150,000 tonnes of residual waste per annum from landfill, around 95% of Oxfordshire's typical annual landfill waste.The Ardley EfW plant is being built primarily for the Oxfordshire public/private partnership (PPP) contract but the plant will also be available for the market more generally, as steeply rising landfill tax drives residual waste disposal away from landfill towards EfW, Pennon said.The plant, which is due to come on stream in 2014, needs capital investment of about £205m by Viridor for a 300,000 tonnes per annum capacity plant. Viridor's investment will be met from internal funds as required."The new plant will have a gross electrical power generation capacity of 25MW [megawatts] and will also be CHP [combined heat & power] enabled," said Colin Drummond, chief executive of Viridor.