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Global water and waste management company Suez has started construction of its £35m ($46.5m) anaerobic digestion (AD) facility in Northumberland, the UK.
The site will process up to 50,000 tonnes of food waste annually through anaerobic digestion, producing biogas that will provide enough renewable gas to power around 5,500 homes.
The facility will either send gas directly into the local gas network after cleaning, or turn it into electricity and export it to the local electricity grid.
Nutrient-rich fertiliser will also be produced as a by-product of the anaerobic digestion process.
The project supports the UK government’s ambition to eliminate food waste being sent to landfill by 2030.
Construction is expected to take 18 months, followed by testing and commissioning before the facility becomes operational in autumn 2027.
UK energy plant construction specialist O’Brien Moran has been appointed as the principal contractor at the Ellington site.
The project will incorporate around 115 tonnes of biochar into the ground stabilisation process to help reduce the embodied carbon associated with cement and ground engineering works.
Biochar is a carbon-rich material produced from biomass that can store carbon over the long term.
The company says the new facility will be powered by the existing on-site landfill gas power generation scheme.
