By generating energy from municipal waste the plants have demonstrated a high level of energy efficiency according to EU regulations, and have increased the UK’s landfill diversion rates.
Veolia currently operate ten plants that take around 2 million tonnes of non-recyclable waste and transform this into electricity for over 300,000 homes. This combined generating capacity of 240MWe takes pressure off the stretched UK electrical grid and effectively avoids using fossil fuels for generation.
Some of these facilities also produce heating for communities through district heating networks, by using combined heat and power technology. As an estimated 20% of the nation’s carbon emissions are generated by domestic heating, due to a low standard of energy efficiency, using this type of non - fossil fuel heating lowers carbon emissions and can help reduce cost, and fuel poverty, in vulnerable groups.
“Access to affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy has a direct impact on modern life, and is linked to fuel poverty and carbon emissions,” Richard Kirkman, technical director, Veolia UK and Ireland commented. “To virtually eliminate wastes and produce energy in its place is a win-win situation. By generating green electricity and heat from resources such as non-recyclable residual waste we improve resource efficiency, reduce landfill and achieve greater sustainability as part of the circular economy.”
Designed to improve energy recovery performance the R1 formula is set out in the EU Waste Framework Directive and is a performance indicator for the level of energy recovered from waste. The assessment factors include the energy produced by the plant, and the energy contained in the waste, and effectively places it higher up the waste hierarchy.