Summary
The East Rockingham Waste to Energy project will process up to 330,000 tonnes of residual waste per annum and recover energy to produce 28.9 MW of power.
Need
The East Rockingham Waste to Energy project addresses two major challenges facing Australia; delivering sustainable and affordable solutions for both electricity generation and waste management.
Australia disposes over 23 million tonnes of waste to landfill every year, with Western Australia having the highest waste generation rate per capita coupled with the lowest recovery rate.
There are significant environmental costs to land, air and water associated with landfilling. For example, Perth is built on a sandy coastal plain that relies heavily on groundwater as its primary source of potable water. As readily accessible landfill sites reach capacity, and with no new metropolitan landfill sites likely to be approved, it is imperative to adopt other solutions to improve waste diversion rates.
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Action
Developed by New Energy Corporation, Hitachi Zosen Inova Australia (HZI) and Tribe Infrastructure Group (Tribe), the project will be the second large-scale Energy from Waste (EfW) facility in Australia. It will process up to 300,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) of residual waste and 30,000 tpa of bio-solids from the Perth metropolitan area. It will also produce around 70,000 tpa of bottom ash (BA) and 12,000 tpa of flue gas treatment residuals. The BA will be further processed to recover metals and produce an aggregate product that can be used in road bases and other construction materials applications. This will achieve a 96 per cent diversion from landfill.
The East Rockingham Waste to Energy project will export 28.9 MW of electricity to the grid of which over 50 per cent of the power is deemed to be renewable.
Outcome
The project aims to achieve the following outcomes:
- contribute to reducing the price of renewable energy
- provide continuous renewable electricity that supports grid stability
- demonstrate the use of treated bottom ash supporting grid stability
- demonstrate the use of treated bottom ash replacing virgin materials
- demonstrate world leading innovative large scale EfW aspects, including pathway to achieving bankability
- improve technology readiness and deployment of EfW projects
- increase the skills, capacity and knowledge relevant to renewable energy technologies.
Additional impact
Environmental
- Reduction of 9.7m tonnes of GHG over 30 years
- Diversion of 288,000 tonnes of waste per year from landfill
- Development of new aggregate product replacing virgin materials
Community
- 50 permanent jobs
- 300 jobs during construction
- Strong focus on engagement and education.
Read more about Bioenergy/Energy from waste projects.