Plans to invest £200 million into Parc Adfer’s energy from waste facility, have been announced by enfinium. This investment will specifically go into CCS technology for the facility, which is located in Deeside, North Wales.

enfinium chose this project, because it has shown the potential for capturing 235,000 tonnes of CO2 annually, as well as, over half of the plant’s produce being organic. This means that a CCS installation, could allow the plant to take in more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, in comparison to the amount it produces. This investment and addition to the plant, is necessary to Wales and would be extremely beneficial to both Wales and the Welsh Government, due to the organisation’s Carbon Budget and their requirement for carbon removal solutions. These solutions would enable the Government to alleviate the pressure on other parts of the economy, which are also heavy polluters and it would push the economy towards their goal of achieving Net Zero. This aim will be greatly aided through installing CCS technology at Parc Adfer, as this plant will significantly support the Welsh Government’s ambition. These ambitions include having 100% zero carbon power by 2035, whilst also supporting more than 1,000 jobs that are in the green economy, throughout the construction phase.

The UK Government has received this proposal, which was put forwards for grant support, due to the proposal falling under the Government’s expansion of their ‘Track-1’ carbon capture programme. Within the proposal, enfinium included their plan for what would happen to the carbon once it was captured and this would involve the captured CO2 being transported by the pipeline network, that is under development in the region for the HyNet carbon capture cluster. This cluster was selected for development within the UK and it was one of the first two priority carbon capture clusters to achieve this.

Parc Adfer was established in 2019, due to a partnership between five local authorities that created the North Wales Residual Waste Treatment Partnership (NWRWTP). So far, Parc Adfer, has displayed an excellent ability to divert an estimated 232,000 tonnes of unrecyclable waste from climate damaging facilities. This has resulted in emissions from energy from waste plants, to have a lower per ton of waste, in comparison to landfill. This excellent achievement was noticed by the National Infrastructure Commission.

The planning and development for this CCS installation at Parc Adfer, will begin later in 2024 and alongside this, the Government has stated that they will provide an update on the projects that will successfully progress through the Track-1 HyNet expansion programme.  This announcement is due to be made by the summer of 2024.

CEO of enfinium, Mike Maudsley, commented, “To deliver a net zero carbon economy, Wales needs to find a way to produce carbon removals, or negative emissions, at scale. Installing carbon capture at the Parc Adfer facility would transform it into the largest generator of carbon negative power in Wales, decarbonise unrecyclable waste and support the green economy in Deeside and wider North Wales region.”

CEO of Net Zero Industry Wales, Ben Burggraaf, added, “North-East Wales has an exciting opportunity to leverage technologies like carbon capture and hydrogen to produce the sustainable goods and services of the future. It is critical that projects like those at Parc Adfer move forward as quickly as possible to maintain our competitive advantage over other countries.”