Eni to support carbon capture from UK waste

The UK subsidiary of global energy company Eni S.p.A, Eni UK, has signed a deal with energy-from-waste (EfW) business enfinium to support development of carbon capture and storage (CCS) at its Parc Adfer facility in North Wales.

Greenhouse gas emissions from landfills in the UK amounted to around 13.6 million metric tonnes in 2021. Working on behalf of councils across North Wales, enfinium diverts 200,000 tonnes of unrecyclable waste from landfill and uses it to generate energy to power more than 45,000 UK homes and business.

By integrating Eni’s carbon capture technology into its existing infrastructure, enfinium has the potential to remove over 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere each year, according to the company.

Commenting on the announcement, Mike Maudsley, CEO of enfinium, said, “We are pleased to announce our partnership with Eni UK, marking a significant step on our journey to decarbonise our operations and the wider North Wales region. Energy from waste is the only proven long-term solution for sustainably managing unrecycled waste, which is why we continue to look for innovations to reduce and capture emissions.”

The Parc Adfer facility.

Eni UK is also the developer and operator of the CO2 transport and storage infrastructure for the HyNet North West cluster – one of two priority projects selected by the UK Government to deliver on its carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) deployment plans.

“If connected to the HyNet North West cluster, Parc Adfer would take emissions out of the atmosphere while also generating carbon negative electricity to support Wales’ renewable power targets,” added Maudsley.

One of the largest EfW businesses in the UK, enfinium has an annual waste processing capacity of over 2.3m tonnes and total combined electric generation capacity of 265MW (megawatts).

“It’s great to see our members enfinium and Eni working together on plans for Energy from Waste with Carbon Capture and Storage, which can help Wales meet key policy goals – reducing the amount of waste that goes to landfill, providing decarbonised electricity, and ensuring greenhouse gases from biogenic waste are removed from the atmosphere,” said Ruth Herbert, CEO of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association (CCSA).

“With this project, North Wales could contribute to the government’s engineered greenhouse gas removals target of 5 million tonnes by 2030.”

According to Catapult Energy Systems, fitting CCUS to EfW plants could lead to 20% of all captured CO2 in the UK being derived from EfW plants by 2050, with a corresponding 20% overall increase in CO2 being captured in the same timeframe compared with the case without EfW-CCUS being available.

To advance the decarbonisation of EfW, the organisation recommends EfW with CCUS to be included in the options the Government assesses when it considers an investment in the decarbonisation of industrial clusters.

It also suggests that a more detailed option and techno-economic analysis be carried out that focuses on the technical options available for decarbonising EfW plants.