FEATURED TOPIC – WASTE-TO-ENERGY
Regulatory drivers
Construction on Western Australia’s Kwinana WtE facility is expected to be complete by late 2021, with Veolia to operate and maintain the facility under a 25-year contract.
TO PROGRESS AUSTRALIA’S WASTE-TO-ENERGY CAPABILITIES, GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO HELP DRIVE THE AGENDA. VEOLIA AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND’S MARK TAYLOR EXPLAINS.
A
recent report from Infrastructure Partnerships Australia suggests a lack of scale, social licence and impetus for change has led to waste-toenergy (WtE) and other forms of advanced waste processing being underutilised in Australia. “Decades of inconsistent and fragmented waste policy have held back investment in the sector and extended reliance on landfill instead of more sustainable practices,” the report reads. Furthermore, the report highlights WtE not as a form of waste disposal, but rather an opportunity to extract value from waste that would otherwise be sent to landfill. Western Australia’s Kwinana WtE facility – the first large-scale thermal combustion facility in Australia – is
24 / WMR / September 2020
cited as a positive example of progress. The $698 million project, which was co-developed by Macquarie Capital and Phoenix Energy, will convert 400,000 tonnes of post-recycling household and C&I waste into baseload energy to the grid – with a total output capacity of 36 megawatts, enough electricity to power around 50,000 households. Construction is expected to be completed by late 2021, with Veolia Australia and New Zealand to operate and maintain the facility under a 25year contract. “Most of the regulation in Australia is looking at European best practice in terms of legislation and technology solutions,” Mark Taylor, Head of Solid Waste Treatment for Veolia Australia and New Zealand says. “Veolia is relatively technology
agnostic in terms of specific solutions, but what is very clear from our portfolio and experience is an understanding of what works best in different circumstances.” Sustainability Victoria’s 2019 Resource Recovery Technology Guide, for instance, shows that combustion processes have been widely deployed for processing waste materials across the globe and have the strongest technical and commercial track record of all residual waste treatment technologies. The guide cites European examples where energy recovery facilities (ERF) are coupled with recycling schemes to achieve resource recovery and landfill diversions rates of about 75 per cent. In the UK for example, recycling and ERF form part of an integrated focus on building a circular economy.
