French recycling company TIRU has been commissioned to build and operate a new £70m energy-from-waste (EfW) facility at Binn Eco Park near Perth.
Owners Binn Group and investment partners Iona Capital will continue with plans approved by Perth and Kinross Council in 2020 for the next generation plant.
TIRU currently operates two EfW plants at Grimsby and Exeter, along with a 18 further facilities across Europe, ranging in scale from 3 Megawatts (MW) to 200 MW.
The Binn Eco Park will be their first EfW contract in Scotland and TIRU will also supply the technology for the 8 MW facility, handling up to 85,000 tonnes each year.
It should create more than 200 jobs during the construction phase and 30 long-term skilled posts once operational, hopefully by late 2024.
Binn Group is one of the country's largest independent resource management operators, and will act as primary feedstock suppliers for the plant, which will be developed as part of the 200-acre Binn Eco Park site, where a variety of low-carbon energy solutions are being developed, including EfW, wind and solar power.
The Binn Eco Park is also the proposed site for an advanced plastics recycling facility granted a £5.2m award in the £300m Tay Cities Deal.
This new facility should enable Binn Group to offer customers ‘all in one bin’ collection systems for industrial, commercial and municipal plastics.
The Binn EfW facility will provide additional low carbon energy to a local private electricity grid helping to drive clean technology development at the Binn Eco Park. The private grid will also let it export low-carbon energy to local businesses and other facilities.
Future plans for the Binn Eco Park include advanced horticulture systems to support short food miles supply chain development, advanced circular economy recycling systems and a clean technology training and research and development centre, which will all benefit from low carbon heat produced by the on-site EfW.
Julia Safiullina, investment manager at Iona Capital, said: "Their experience in engineering and construction gives us confidence that the project will be delivered on time and on budget."
Allan MacGregor, chief executive at Binn Group, added: "We are excited at the role the facility will play in securing growth of Binn Group, whilst supporting inward investment and economic regeneration for the Perthshire economy."
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