Image provided by Hitachi Zosen Inova
United Kingdom-based waste and recycling company Cory Group has awarded Hitachi Zosen Inova (HZI) the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to build Cory’s second large-scale waste-to-energy (WTE) plant, located in the Belvedere section of London.
After arranging financing for what will be called the Riverside 2 Energy from Waste facility, Cory Group turned to HZI, a Switzerland-based business unit of Tokyo-based Hitachi, to build its second such plant.
Once the new Riverside facility is operational in 2026, it will be able to accept around 650,000 metric tons per year of waste designated as non-recyclable while generating around 61 electric megawatts (MWe) of net electricity. HZI calls that enough energy to power more than 140,000 U.K. households each year.
Construction is scheduled to start in early January and last nearly four years. The Riverside 2 facility was originally granted planning permission in April 2020, and the plant’s owners have already secured an environmental permit to operate the facility, says HZI.
The plant will use HZI’s moving grate technology, which has been deployed in other WTE facilities in the U.K., including the Riverside 1 facility, also operated by Cory.
“HZI is delighted to have been awarded our second EPC contract with Cory to build the Riverside 2 facility,” HZI Vice President Fabio Dinale says. “We thank the Cory leadership team for again choosing HZI to build the second facility, and the great cooperation in developing the project. The location of this new plant is significant for HZI as it will be adjacent to the first Riverside facility, which has now been safely and successfully operating for over a decade.”
“The new Riverside 2 facility will provide London and South East England with urgently needed [WTE] capacity, diverting residual waste away from being landfilled and helping to generate more reliable baseload energy in the U.K.," Dinale adds.
Cory CEO Dougie Sutherland says, “I am delighted to be partnering with HZI once again to deliver this world-class facility. We are making a significant investment to ensure that we process non-recyclable waste to the highest standards at a site that is enabled for carbon capture and hydrogen production.”
“We are always looking for ways to mitigate our environmental impact. Riverside 2 will have the U.K.’s lowest nitrogen oxide (NOx) levels, will take refuse vehicles off our roads by transporting waste via the River Thames, and will be connected to one of the U.K.’s largest heat networks," Sutherland adds.
The facility will be built on land to the east of the existing Riverside 1 plant on the banks of the River Thames. HZI says the plant will generate electricity through a steam turbine designed to meet strict emission directive requirements.