ACT looks for 23MW of waste-to-energy power plants

The ACT government is looking to offer feed-in-tariffs for up to 23MW of waste-to-energy power plants as part of its plans to source 90 per cent of its electicity needs from renewables by 2020.

The territory is looking to build a large power plant that could use construction waste, wood waste, high-value plastics or even household food waste to power the equivalent of 15,000 homes in the nation’s capital.

The ACT has already announced in the past week plans for a 50MW solar park featuring the latest solar technologies and storage, and a 1MW community solar facility, and will shortly announce its first major wind energy auction.

The minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development, Simon Corbell, said bioenergy is widely used in northern Europe as a clean, renewable source for producing energy.

“The government is investigating options to seek proposals to establish an advanced facility using a technology such as gasification, pyrolysis or plasma gasification,” he said in a statement. “These technologies are cleaner than conventional combustion and can potentially produce value-added products such as biochar and transport fuels.”

The ACT is aiming to recycle 90 per cent of its waste, but is currently achieving between 70 and 75 per cent.

Corbell told RenewEconomy that that territory had already run an “expressions of interest” program on the waste-to-energy proposal, so had a “reasonably good handle” on what the business case looks like.

He expects the ACT will go to market next year for the technology, which he says will be cost effective. The territory already operates a 3MW facility that generates electricity from landfill gas.