Waste-to-energy boss signals plant completion

The boss of a waste-to-energy plant being built in Kwinana is adamant it will be operational next year as he talks up the sector’s potential to power WA homes and hospitals.

Avertas Energy’s Kwinana waste-to-energy plant, backed by Macquarie Capital, will once complete torch about 400,000 tonnes of waste annually, converting the heat into energy and ash byproduct into construction material.

First slated for completion in 2021 before being revised to late 2022, confusion has reigned in recent months as end dates ranging from mid-2024 to late-2025 surface for the $700 million project.

Avertas Energy chief executive Frank Smith on Tuesday told a Kwinana industry conference the plant would be operational next year.

“When this plant is operational, and it will be next year, there will be a whole lot of lessons learned out of this for all of Australia,” he said.

“This is the heartland effectively of waste-to-energy in Australia.”

The project has been mired by delays and in 2022 was embroiled in a Supreme Court of WA case where Acciona unsuccessfully argued the state’s hard borders and COVID-19 left the company unable to fulfil its contractual obligations.

Customers in waiting include Mandurah, Kwinana, South Perth, Murray and Armadale local governments.

Speaking broadly to the waste-to-energy sector’s potential, Mr Smith said Western Australians should be open to plants being built close to residential areas and health campuses.

“The logic is that you use that heat source for district heating circuits and we don't have that here, but there certainly would have been an opportunity,” he said.

“Can you imagine if you co-located a waste-to-energy plant close to Fiona Stanley Hospital where you have that type of need for hot water and steam.

“We can’t take medical waste but 95 per cent of the rest of their volume of waste can come to us, and I'm hopeful that is what's going to happen.”

Mr Smith there was potential to use the ash byproduct as road base, but WA was still 10 years away from having the capability to do so.

He said recruitment of skilled workers and regulatory conservatism remained barriers to new projects in WA.