Costain is in line to build a £160m green energy plant at Runcorn in Cheshire, after Viridor Waste Management signed the construction contract for the scheme.
It will be the second of two construction phases for the Energy from Waste (EfW) plant.
The first phase, with a construction value of £397m, is already being built by Costain, and the contractor looks favourite for the second phase.
Colin Drummond, chief executive of Viridor, said “Construction of Phase II will be coordinated with ongoing work on Phase I which permits significant cost savings.”
The second phase requires capital investment of £160m for the plant, which will be able to handle 375,000 tonnes of waste a year. A further £34m will be spent on “shared works” required for both phases.
Phase I is being built primarily for the Greater Manchester Waste PFI contract.
Viridor secured the development rights in April 2009 for Phase II, which will be available for the market generally.
Drummond added: “The combined Runcorn plant will be one of the largest and most efficient in Europe with a total capacity of 750kt of waste a year, 70MW of electricity and 51MW of heat.
“Phase II will come on stream by 2014/2015 by which time large scale energy from waste facilities will be cost competitive against landfill with landfill tax by then being £80 per tonne.”
Viridor specialises in the construction and operation of EfW plants to handle residual waste which is being diverted from landfill in line with European Landfill Directives, and maximising the associated renewable energy generation.
Sign up to our FREE email newsletters or subscribe to our RSS feed for regular updates on the latest construction news, construction tenders, construction data, and construction law.
Got a story? Email news@theconstructionindex.co.uk
