For information: Update on Waste Treatment Procurement

Oxfordshire Residual Waste Treatment Procurement - update

This is the seventh in a series of updates to inform you about progress in procuring major new residual and food waste treatment facilities for Oxfordshire. The last update was issued by email on 19 August 2008. 

Background

The council is procuring residual waste treatment facilities to reduce the amount of household waste that is land filled to meet EU and national targets and avoid substantial fines. The procurement began formally with the advertisement of the contract in the Official Journal of the European Union in March 2007. Since then the procurement has progressed through the pre-qualification stage and in August 2007 eight companies were invited to submit outline solutions for the treatment of Oxfordshire’s residual waste. All the outline solutions submitted in October 2007 proposed energy from waste (EfW) technology entailing incineration with energy recovery. In February 2008 two participants were selected to submit detailed solutions:

Both participants are proposing 300,000 tonne per year plants which will treat Oxfordshire’s municipal waste and a significant amount of Commercial & Industrial waste (CIW). Treating CIW will have environmental benefits and should provide better value for money for the council.

Detailed solutions were submitted by the participants in July 2008. These were subsequently evaluated and a process of competitive dialogue has been taking place with both companies since October 2008. This has involved a regular series of meetings to discuss aspects of the technology and plant operation, the payment mechanism and the draft contract.

Progress

The dialogue has been intensive and has continued until all technical, financial, and legal issues relating to the detailed solutions and the draft contracts with each bidder have been resolved. This point was reached in early April and the dialogue was closed on 8 April 2009. At the same time the bidding companies were invited to submit their final tenders. The deadline for the bidders to submit their final tenders is 1 May 2009.

Planning

The participants have submitted their planning applications for their proposals. WRG submitted a planning application at the end of July 2008 and Viridor submitted an application in October 2008. Following public consultation both companies submitted revised planning applications earlier this year which sought to address objections, and these have been subject to further consultation during March and April. Determination of the planning applications will be independent from the procurement process. Planning decisions are made on planning grounds and are guided by local, regional and national planning policy and other material planning considerations. Both participants have now also submitted permit applications to the Environment Agency. A permit is required before the plant can be operated.

Communications

The information on the website continues to be regularly monitored and updated with new Q&A’s, links and documents. Please see www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/alternativestolandfill for more information.

You may also be interested to read information about energy from waste that is available from the Environment Agency and Health Protection Agency;

Next steps

When the final tenders have been received they will be subject to a careful and rigorous evaluation against a range of technical (including environmental and planning), financial (including cost and affordability), and legal criteria. The selection of the preferred bidder will be reported to the Cabinet for approval to proceed to award the contract. It is anticipated that this will be in July 2009. A contract is expected to be awarded in November 2009.

Food waste processing

The council has recently awarded a contract to Agrivert Ltd for food waste treatment capacity to help achieve recycling and composting targets of 55% in the longer term and to help divert waste away from landfill.. The contract will provide one IVC facility near Ardley for the processing of mixed food and garden waste and two Anaerobic Digestion facilities at Cassington and, subject to planning, Crowmarsh for the processing of food waste. All district councils will introduce food waste collections by the end of 2010.  Further information can be found on our dedicated website: www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/foodwaste.  

 April 2009


Frankie Upton
Waste Project Manager

 

Oxfordshire County Council
Environment and Economy
Speedwell House
Speedwell Street, Oxford, OX1 1NE
Tel 01865 815824

Previous briefs August 2007:-

This is the third in a series of quarterly updates to inform you about progress in procuring major new waste treatment facilities for Oxfordshire. Previous updates were issued by email on 2 May 2007, and 9 August 2007.

Background

The council needs to procure waste treatment facilities to reduce the amount of household waste that is landfilled to meet EU and national targets and avoid substantial fines. On 19 September 2006, the Cabinet agreed that the procurement should be started on the basis of the business case which demonstrated that the cost of treatment could be significantly less than the cost of continuing with landfill disposal. The Cabinet also agreed that the procurement will be carried out on a technology neutral basis, based on a public private partnership (PPP) and a Design, Build, Finance, Operate (DBFO) contract whereby the council would pay a gate fee (essentially a charge per tonne) for the waste treated. More detailed information can be found in the Cabinet report. 

 CA190906-11 <<<http://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/content/public/Resources/hlpdownloads/CA/CA190906-11.htm>>>

The contract was advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) on 31 March 2007.  An industry day was held on 23 April 2007 at the Said Business School in Oxford to help generate market interest in the contract. This was attended by a range of waste management and technology companies.

The first stage of the procurement process - pre-qualification - was completed in July 2007. Of the 15 companies who submitted pre-qualification questionnaires following advertisement of the OJEU notice, eight were recommended to be invited to participate in the competitive dialogue process. The list was agreed by the project Board on 19 July 2007 and is available on the County Council’s web site

 Oxfordshire County Council Website <http://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/wps/portal/publicsite/councilservices?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=http://apps.oxfordshire.gov.uk/wps/wcm/connect/Internet/Council+services/Environment+and+planning/Waste+and+recycling/Alternatives+to+landfill/> 

Progress

The council is using the Competitive Dialogue procurement process and on 10 August 2007 invited the companies to participate in dialogue and to submit outline solutions (Invitation to Submit Outline Solutions - ISOS). A range of submissions have been received by the 19 October deadline and participants have had an opportunity to present their solutions to the Waste Treatment Team and senior Board members. The submissions received are all well though out and realistic. They would all result in landfill diversion targets being met and achieve high levels of diversion of residual waste from landfill. A careful evaluation process has been undertaken to select which participants should be taken through to the next stage of the process.

The Council followed a policy of being technology neutral in the procurement thereby giving the market the best opportunity of bringing forward the most economically and technologically viable solution for Oxfordshire. All the participants have proposed energy from waste (EfW) involving incineration with energy recovery as the best solution. EfW is a proven technology that is used throughout Europe and the UK, including in countries that achieve high recycling rates.

About EfW

EfW is the name given to the incineration of waste under controlled conditions to produce heat. The heat produced is then used to produce electricity. Heat can also be used to produce steam or hot water for industrial or domestic use. The amount of electricity produced depends on the size of the plant.

The best countries in Europe that achieve high recycling rates of 50-60% still need to have alternative ways of disposing of waste than landfill and many of these countries have energy from waste incinerators. There are already 128 in France, 65 in Germany, 30 in Denmark, 29 in Sweden and 28 in Switzerland, and Britain has 14.

Any treatment facility will need to be permitted by the Environment Agency. They have strict rules for such facilities and will not allow anything that is unsafe. The Health Protection Agency have a responsibility to protect human health and would also not allow anything that is unsafe. They have produced a position statement on energy from waste which can be found at: <http://www.hpa.org.uk/chemicals/ippc/incineration_posn_statement.pdf>

Next steps

The results of the evaluation have been considered by the Waste Treatment Board on 19 December and will be reported to the Cabinet on 15 January 2008. It is anticipated that up to four participants will be invited into the detailed stage in February 2008 (Invitation to Submit Detailed Solutions - ISDS). The Council will have an opportunity for a debate at the meeting on 8 January 2008. Sufficient information will be made available to inform the Council debate. However, as this is a competitive bidding process some of the information submitted to the Council is commercially sensitive and will not be possible to report publicly. Following the completion of the ISOS stage it is proposed to release the names of the participants invited into the detailed stage in the same way as they were for the outline solution stage. A communications plan has been prepared to manage this and the on going media interest in this project.

The indicative timetable for the procurement is as follows, although there remain a number of significant risks and uncertainties that could affect it.

Milestone       Completed by   
OJEU notice advertised  March 2007     
Pre-Qualification of Participants       July 2007      
Issue Invitation to Participate in Dialogue (ITPD) to pre-qualified participants and commence competitive dialogue      10 August 2007 
Deadline for submitting outline solutions       19 October 2007
Issue invitation to Submit Detailed Solutions (ISDS)    Early 2008     
Deadline for submission of detailed solutions   Summer 2008    
Call for Final Tenders issued   Autumn 2008    
Contract close  Spring 2009    
Planning, licensing, construction completed and new facility operational        2012   

Food waste processing

Technical consultants have been engaged to advise and assist with the procurement process, and a separate governance structure is now in place to drive forward progress. This is being lead by Chris Cousins, Head of Sustainable Development as project sponsor. 

The OJEU notice for this procurement was dispatched on 30 October 2007 and the pre qualification stage has started. A bidders’ day took place on 29 November which was well attended. The deadline for return of pre qualification questionnaires was 8 December. Tenders should be issued January 2008, with contract awarded March/April 2008. The successful tenderer will apply for planning and other consents (unless already received) and for capacity to be operational by April 2009 or before.

The contract is being structured to allow the provision of more than one facility and more than one technology. However, the outcome will depend on what industry can offer.

I hope this update is helpful. Please contact me if you have any queries.

Regards, Frankie

Frankie Upton
Waste Project Manager

Oxfordshire County Council
Environment and Economy
Speedwell House
Speedwell Street, Oxford, OX1 1NE
Tel 01865 815824