East Rockingham: waste incineration plant near Perth with ARENA funding

At the end of December 2019 the law firm Pinsent Masons, advising Hitachi Zosen Inova (HZI), announced the East Rockingham Resource Recovery Facility project in Western Australia – HZI's first energy-from-waste plant in Australia. According to that announcement, the AUD 511 million investment was to start construction in early January 2020, with operation planned for the end of 2022. The plant is to process 300,000 tonnes of municipal and industrial waste per year and export 28.9 MW to the grid.

Parameters according to ARENA

The project page of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) gives: up to 330,000 tonnes per year (about 300,000 t of residual waste and about 30,000 t of sewage sludge), 28.9 MW of energy exported to the grid, of which more than half is recognised as renewable, and a total cost of AUD 510.8 million. ARENA provided an AUD 18 million recoverable grant under the Advancing Renewables Program. According to the agency, the plant is to produce about 70,000 tonnes of bottom ash per year (processed into construction aggregate) and 12,000 tonnes of flue gas treatment residues, and the landfill diversion rate is 96% (288,000 t per year).

The consortium

According to ARENA, the project leaders are Tribe Infrastructure, New Energy Corporation and Hitachi Zosen Inova Australia, and the partners are Acciona and Suez. According to Pinsent Masons, the contract for design, construction and commissioning went to the Acciona and HZI consortium, and HZI is also a co-owner and co-operator.

Status

The ARENA page gives the project dates (start 23 August 2019, completion 30 December 2026) but does not state directly the date when operation began. ARENA describes the facility as Australia's second large energy-from-waste plant; earlier plans assumed commissioning by the end of 2022; the completion date in the ARENA record is later, but it is not a commissioning date, so a delay is not confirmed.

Why incineration plants are appearing in Australia

Rising landfill charges, restrictions on waste exports and the resource recovery target from the 2019 national plan are changing the economics. Critics, however, believe that incineration plants reduce the incentives for recycling and may “lock in” demand for waste for decades. ARENA calculates that the project is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 9.7 million tonnes over 30 years.

What this means for Poland

Poland has its own development of municipal incineration plants and of the RDF system. Australian projects show that public funding (an ARENA grant) and international partnerships are possible even for facilities that arouse controversy. For waste-processing biogas plants it is important to keep the streams separate: kitchen waste to digestion, residues to energy.