By Alesha Capone
Wyndham council has approved plans for an energy recovery plant in Laverton North that will generate enough electricity to power 16,000 to 20,000 houses a day.
Recovered Energy Australia submitted the proposal to build a “recovered energy generation facility” at 28 Alex Fraser Drive.
A report, considered by the council last week, said the plant would perform three main functions – receiving waste from councils based in metropolitan Melbourne, materials processing by a gasification process and goods reclamation.
The facility would convert up to 200,000 tonnes of general household domestic waste a year into about 10 megawatts of baseload renewable energy to be fed back into the grid.
The council report stated waste would be transported to the site in standard waste collection trucks and that the plant would process about 600 tonnes of waste daily.
The facility would operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and have a maximum of 10 staff on-site at any one time. A carpark with 60 spaces would be located on-site.
When Star Weekly reported on the proposal last year, Recovered Energy Australia director Ian Guss said the plant would be worth “in the order of around $100 million”.
The facility, once constructed, would have a maximum height of 35 metres and a floor area of 11,500 square metres.
The council report stated that before the plant could be built, a separate works approval was required from the state Environment Protection Authority (EPA).
“The EPA have advised council that the applicant is currently compiling detailed information for submission of a works approval application,” the report stated.
The report stated that the facility would be “appropriately sited in the core of the Laverton North Industrial Area and a significant distance from residential land and more sensitive uses”.
