"Diverting up to 350,000 tonnes of residual, non-recyclable waste away from landfill each year and generating enough electricity to power the equivalent of up to 70,000 homes"

Diverting up to 350,000 tonnes of residual, non-recyclable waste away from landfill each year and generating enough electricity to power up to 70,000 homes

About South Clyde Energy Centre

The South Clyde Energy Centre is an Energy-from-Waste Facility (EfW) under construction and jointly owned by Fortum and Gren Energy, in Glasgow, Scotland.

The facility will enter commercial operations by the end of 2026.

The South Clyde Energy Centre will generate energy from non-hazardous domestic and commercial waste left over from the recycling process.

Key benefits:

  • Renewable

    Generating up to 45 MWe gross of lower carbon electricity - enough to power the equivalent of around 70,000 homes.¹

  • Energy Production

    Creating Scottish energy resilience by generating power straight into the grid.

  • Recycled materials

    Preventing approximately 350,000 tonnes of residual waste going to landfill or being exported outside of the UK each year.

  • Meeting demand

    Once operational, creating around 40 permanent jobs on site for operations and maintenance and while in construction supporting approximately 500 construction jobs, in addition to supply chain opportunities for local businesses.

Concept - State of the Art Technology

The South Clyde Energy Centre is being built with state of the art technology. The plant generates energy by using non-recyclable waste as fuel. The combustion process and flue gas cleaning technology is designed to remove harmful emissions to the highest internationally accepted standards. The potential to add carbon capture technology in the future would allow carbon dioxide to be captured and stored or turned into new materials, reducing greenhouse gas emissions to close to zero.

Key Technical Insights:

  • Designed to treat various waste streams: Municipal solid waste as well as industrial and commercial waste, and refuse derived fuels

  • Once operational the site can treat waste 24/7

  • Designed to fulfill environmental and industrial emission standards

  • Energy efficiency and maximal electricity production is ensured with a powerful steam turbine plant that include an Air Cooled Condenser (ACC)

  • Potential for future heat offtake so that site can be connected to local district heating

Benefits of the South Clyde Energy Centre

The South Clyde Energy Centre helps ensure that waste is appropriately managed and treated. The project is expected to play a critical role in delivering the Scottish Government's landfill ban, which comes into effect in 2025.

Compared to landfilling, South Clyde Energy Centre is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 67 kt CO2e per year.¹

Once operational, South Clyde Energy Centre will generate up to 45 MWe gross of electricity by processing up to 350,000 tonnes of residual waste each year, equivalent to the waste arising from around 380,000 households.¹

The plant will generate reliable and valuable baseload electricity. It will also be enabled for heat offtake so it has the potential to provide heat to local businesses or district heating systems.

South Clyde Energy Centre also has scope to be retrofitted with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology in the future, aligning it with the requirements of the Scottish Government's Climate Change Plan. Moreover, the CCS technology could be developed further, towards Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) so that the site's emissions from waste incineration are captured and used to make new materials, like high-quality plastics.

Once operational, the South Clyde Energy Centre will create around 40 permanent on-site jobs, in addition to supply chain opportunities for local businesses. While in construction, the project will support approximately 500 construction jobs over the lifetime of the project build.

¹Internal GIG Analysis as at July 2022.

Background

Who is building the site?

South Clyde Energy Centre is being built by Fortum Glasgow limited, a partnership between Fortum Oyj and Gren Energy. The partnership was established in June 2024, following a sale of a 50% stake to Gren Energy. The partnership leverages Fortum's decades-long experience pioneering solutions for challenging waste management issues and Gren Energy's extensive track record as an established energy supplier in Northern Europe, serving nearly 180,000 homes and 600 commercial premises across Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Lithuania.

Who is Fortum?

Fortum is a Nordic energy company. The company is one of the cleanest energy producers in Europe. Fortum generates and deliver clean energy reliably and helps industries to decarbonise their processes and grow. Fortum's core operations in the Nordics comprise of efficient, CO2-free power generation as well as reliable supply of electricity and district heat to private and business customers. In the UK, the company is focused on Energy from Waste. Fortum is collaborating with local partners and stakeholders to contribute to the UK's transition towards a low-carbon economy, enhancing energy security and providing innovative energy services to both residential and industrial customers.

Who is Gren Energy?

Gren develops and delivers energy solutions, ranging from sustainable district heating to renewable and industrial energy, to meet the daily needs of its customers and communities. With an extensive track record in the Baltics, Gren entered the UK market in May 2023 when it acquired a network of Combined Heat and Power, Energy from Waste and biomass assets.

Gren is also working to invest in, and rapidly scale, the UK's existing district heating networks, and to build new ones. It is using technology already internationally proven to be the most cost-effective way to decarbonise urban areas - and is already used extensively in towns and cities in mainland Europe.

What is Energy from Waste?

Energy from Waste (EfW) refers to energy recovery from waste incineration. Mixed waste always contains some parts that cannot be recycled. This could be because it is mixed with other waste - for example kitchen roll that has been used to wipe up spilt food - or it could be because there is no economic or practical way to split out the recycling components such as metal springs in aerosol pumps.

For these kinds of materials, waste incineration is a safe and economically viable option to help ensure that non-recyclable waste does not end up in landfill. The energy gained in incineration can be used for district heating for neighbouring businesses or communities and electricity for the national grid. The South Clyde Energy Centre provides a local solution to decarbonise waste from Glasgow and the surrounding area and will help reduce the environmental impact of waste.

Project Parties

Key construction partners:

Procurement

Is your company interested in supplying goods or services to the South Clyde Energy Centre project? The planned upcoming tendering schedules for the different purchase packages are shown below. Please let us know about your interest by filling in the attached form.

Purchase Packages Planned Tendering Schedule
1. Main Equipment
Boiler Plant Completed
Flue Gas Treatment Plant Completed
Steam Turbine Plant Completed
2. Balance of Plant
Mechanical Equipment
Closed cooling water air coolers Completed
Process pumps and motors Completed
Tanks: storage tanks, blow down tank, expansion vessels Ongoing
Control valves Completed
Steam reduction stations Completed
Turbine hall crane Completed
Hoists Tender round planned in Q4/2024
Main lift(s) Ongoing
Piping and Insulation
Piping installation works Tender round planned for Q3/2024
Shut off valves Ongoing
Flow orifice plates Ongoing
Thermal insulation of piping and equipment Tender round planned in Q4/2024
Water Treatment
Water treatment plant Ongoing
Fuel Handling
Waste bunker crab cranes Completed
Weighbridge system Ongoing
COMPRESSED AIR PLANT
Compressed air system Completed
WORKSHOP AND LABORATORY EQUIPMENT AND TOOLS
Workshop equipment and tools Tender round planned for Q3/2025
Laboratory equipment Tender round planned for Q1/2025
Office and control room furniture Tender round planned for Q3/2025
3. Automation Systems
DCS system Completed
Field instruments for process systems incl. flow meters Tender round planned for Q3/2024
Installation of field instruments and cabling Tender round planned for Q3/2024
4. Electrical Systems
Main and auxiliary transformer Completed
Medium voltage systems, switchgears and distribution transformers Ongoing
Low voltage equipment Ongoing
Process electrical installations Tender round planned for Q3/2024
5. Buildings and civil works
Weed eradication Completed
Additional site investigations Completed
CCO1 Site establishment Completed
Site security and guarding Completed
Railway crossing Completed
CC02 Piling works Completed
CC03 RC Concrete Completed
CC04 Steel frame Completed
CC05 Façade works Tender round planned for Q3/2024
CC06 MEP works; Mechanical/Electrical and plumbing works Ongoing
CC07 Internal Fit out of building and ancillary areas Tender round planned for Q4/2024
CC08 Area finishing works Tender round planned for Q3/2024
7. Site Management
Site facilities Completed

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