Scotland set for new first-of-kind £111m recycling and waste plant

UK Green Investment Bank plc (GIB), Foresight Group and Zouk Capital LLP haveannounced equity investments in the construction of the £111 million Levenseat Renewable Energy Limited 12.3 MWe energy from waste (EfW) plant and adjacent Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) at Forth by Lanark, Scotland.

GIB’s £28.25m investment was made via UK Waste & Resource & Energy Investments (UKWREI), the Foresight-managed fund, in which GIB is a cornerstone investor. This is the eighth investment made by the fund which has now fully deployed £78m having mobilised capital in excess of £350m.

The project is also backed by an equity investment from Levenseat Limited and senior debt from Investec Bank plc.

This will be the first time a UK plant has combined fluidised bed gasification technology with Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF), processed by the MRF.

The MRF will recover plastics, metals, paper and card for recycling. The project is forecast to recycle over a million tonnes of materials over its lifetime and will generate the heat required by the MRF.

The development is also forecast to supply electricity equivalent to the needs of nearly 18,000 homes over its expected 25-year lifespan. It is also expected to save 1.4 million tonnes of waste from going into landfill and deliver a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of around 1.3 million tonnes, equivalent to taking over 23,000 cars off the road for every year it operates.

The electricity will be supplied to the national grid with the heat output assisting the operation of the MRF. It will create more than 100 jobs during the construction phase and support 50 full-time jobs when complete.

The MRF is expected to become operational in January 2017, with the complete plant commencing operations in June of that year. Given its location near the centre of the M8 corridor, the facility will be well placed to process household waste from several local authorities and commercial waste from the Glasgow and Edinburgh regions.

M+W Group has been appointed main (EPC) contractor for the project.