GIB commits £80m to Wheelabrator’s Kemsley CHP plant

UK Green Investment Bank plc (GIB) has committed £80m of senior debt to the construction of a new large-scale combined heat and power (CHP) energy from waste facility near Sittingbourne in Kent.

The 43MW plant, once complete, will supply renewable electricity to the grid and renewable heat to DS Smith’s Kemsley Paper Mill. This will produce sustainable packaging for the retail industry.

Wheelabrator Technologies Inc (WTI) are developing the plant and Constructions industrielles de la Méditerranée S.A. (CNIM) are the main engineering, procurement and construction contractor.

The total capital funding is around £340m which WTI have secured from lending clubs, including GIB alongside Barclays, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU), Natixis and Investec.

The plant becomes the first large-scale energy from waste facility supported by the Contract for Difference (CfD) mechanism. It is expected to:

• generate electricity for the grid and heat for Kemsley Paper Mill in Kent;
• generate up to 154GWh of renewable electricity and 180GWh of renewable heat annually; and
• help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 163,000 tonnes per year and prevent around half-a-million tonnes of waste from going to landfill.

The project is the first major energy from waste plant to be supported under a contract for difference and is part of a debt package of over £300m.

For more information, help or advice please contact Andrew Davison on 0191 211 7950 or email [email protected].