Canadian Facility One of Largest Biofuel Plants in North America : Renewi’s Anaerobic Digestion & Compost Plant Reach ‘Full Service’ in Surrey, BC
International waste management and recycling firm, Renewi, has reached full service on its organic biofuel contract with the City of Surrey in Canada.
The company, created in 2017 by the merger of Shanks Group plc and Van Gansewinkel Groep B.V., said that the facility will produce approximately 120,000 GJ of biogas per year which will be used to fuel the City of Surrey’s natural gas powered waste collection vehicles and its growing fleet of natural gas powered operations service vehicles, as well as providing a renewable fuel source for the city’s District Energy System.
The Surrey Biofuel Facility is a 14,323 square metre plant that will process more than 115,000 tonnes of residential and commercial organic waste into renewable natural gas (RNG) each year.
According to Renewi, the facility will one be of the largest organic biofuel infrastructure facilities in North America, and will help the City of Surrey and the Metro Vancouver area achieve its regional waste diversion target of 80% by 2020.
The by-product of this facility - Class A organic compost - will also be available for use in local agriculture and landscaping applications.
The company added that in addition to playing a connecting role in the circular economy, the production of these secondary raw materials by the new facility will be instrumental in reducing community-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by approximately 49,000 tonnes per year, which is the equivalent of taking over 10,000 cars off the road annually.
It was claimed that this reduction in greenhouse gas emissions will also completely eliminate the City of Surrey’s corporate carbon footprint of 17,000 tonnes per year.
The biofuel facility was developed as a Public-Private Partnership (P3). The Government of Canada approved the City of Surrey’s application to the P3 Canada Fund, where it will contribute up to 25% (to a maximum of $16.9 million) of the capital cost of the future biofuel facility. The biofuel facility project is now one of P3 Canada's flagship projects.
In addition, the facility was awarded the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI) Envision Platinum award. The Envision rating system rates sustainable infrastructure across the full range of environmental, social and economic impacts.
The Surrey facility is the first waste sector infrastructure project in North America to earn the Envision award for sustainability.
“The facility is performing well and we are now operating Canada’s first closed-loop and fully integrated organics waste management system, with our ‘waste no more’ vision at its heart,” said James Priestley, Managing Director of Renewi’s Municipal Division.
“Achieving full service commencement for this project is a key part of our recovery plan to stabilise and de-risk the Municipal Division so I am pleased that we are also able to deliver another milestone in that plan,” he concluded.
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