Canadian city reaches deal with Varme Energy for $300M WTE facility

The city of Edmonton in Alberta, Canada, has reached a deal with Norwegian firm Varme Energy to construct a new waste-to-energy facility.

As reported by CTV News, the 15-year deal will see roughly 150,000 tons of residential waste processed every year at a facility northeast of Edmonton once it is built and opened in 2027.

“This alternative is expected to limit landfill use, lower regional greenhouse gas emissions and reduce the carbon impact of our operations,” Denis Jubinville, an Edmonton official, tells CTV News.

Varme Energy Canada’s CEO Sean Collins tells the news outlet that burning garbage this way is better for the environment than landfilling and has become popular in Europe for that reason.

“We are displacing the methane at the landfill and capturing our emissions for sequestration, making the energy we produce carbon negative,” he says. “We get very motivated by the benefit to the environment of these projects.”

The exact location of the facility is not yet public, and the project still requires several government approvals.

Construction of the $300-million facility is expected to create about 250 full-time construction jobs and 25 permanent ones. Collins says the city will pay Varme to get rid of the waste, which he believes will be at a lower overall cost than putting it in landfills.

The Edmonton facility will be the first of its kind in Alberta, Collins tells CTV News, but Varme would like to build four or five more plants in the area in the future.