- Australia
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- The company will construct an AU$511 million (€320 million) plant in East Rockingham, WA, which will process around 300,000 tons of waste every year.
- It will be ACCIONA’s first equity investment in a waste-to-energy project.
ACCIONA is to construct a waste-to-energy (WTE) plant in East Rockingham (Western Australia), the country’s second large-scale WTE plant, in a contract worth AU$511 million (€320 million). Once completed, it will treat around 300,000 tons of waste every year, preventing more than 300,000 tons of CO2 equivalent per annum – the pollution generated by around 64,000 cars.
The plant will have a net capacity to generate 29 MW of renewable electricity, equivalent to the consumption of more than 36,000 households, and will be located in the industrial region of Rockingham, 40 km south of Perth and 7 km from the pioneering plant in Kwinana.
ACCIONA is the lead contractor for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) project, together with Hitachi Zosen Inova (HZI), as well as holding an equity stake in the company for the project alongside HZI and John Laing.
The project also received financial backing from the CEFC, an Australian government-owned institution that supports the country’s energy transition, which has committed up to AU$57.5 million to the project (€35 million) and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) that will provide AU$18 million in recoupable grant funding toward the project (€11 million).
The plant will treat residual waste from municipal, commercial and industrial sources. It will also recover around 73,800 tons of bottom ash every year, which will be processed and used in road bases and other construction materials.
ACCIONA is currently developing two other similar projects. This year, the company was awarded the contract to construct and operate a waste-to-energy plant in Aberdeen (Scotland) called the Ness Energy Project, with a capacity to treat 150,000 tonnes of waste per year and a budget of €400 million. In 2018, ACCIONA was awarded the EPC contract for the first WTE plant of this type in Australia, in Kwinana, worth AU$700 million (€430 million), which will treat up to 400,000 tonnes of waste every year and have a capacity to produce 36MW of electricity, enough to supply around 50,000 homes.
Both East Rockingham and Kwinana are part of ACCIONA’s long-term commitment to projects based on cutting-edge technologies that contribute to sustainability and protecting the environment. ACCIONA’s experience in projects that generate energy, recover waste and construct turnkey power plants were all determining factors in winning these contracts.
Extensive experience in the country
ACCIONA has just recently reached an agreement with Australian infrastructure group Lendlease to acquire the ongoing business of its subsidiary Lendlease Engineering, including eight key projects.
ACCIONA has been present in Australia since 2002. It is one of the company’s platform countries, where it has developed major infrastructure and renewable energy projects. ACCIONA strengthened its position in the country after acquiring Geotech in 2017, a local engineering and construction group.
The company won a contract a few months ago to remove three level crossings and construct two new railway stations (Cheltenham and Mentone), south-east of Melbourne. These works ware worth AU$536 million (€335 million) and represent an extension of the Southern Program Alliance, a project that was won by the company’s consortium in January 2018. ACCIONA is also carrying out projects on the Toowoomba highway and the Warrell Creek to Nambucca Heads section of the Pacific Highway; as well as the Clarence River Bridge and the Sydney Light Rail projects.
ACCIONA is part of the consortia that designed, constructed and now operates the Adelaide desalination plant and the Mundaring drinking water treatment plant. The company is constructing the extension to the Kawana wastewater treatment plant in the state of Queensland; and it was awarded the contract to extend the Kingsborough water treatment plant on the island of Tasmania in collaboration with BMD.
A few months ago, ACCIONA’s energy division began construction on Mortlake South, its fifth wind farm in Australia, which will boost the company’s wind power capacity in the country by 36% to 592 MW. ACCIONA already has four operational wind farms in Australia, namely Cathedral Rocks (64 MW), Gunning (46.5 MW), Waubra (192 MW) and Mt. Gellibrand (132 MW).