July 16 (SeeNews) - A consortium of France's Suez, Japan's Itochu and Luxembourg-based equity fund Marguerite has signed a 25-year contract to provide Serbia's capital Belgrade with heat produced from the energy recovery of waste, Suez said.
The contract marks a new phase in the implementation of the public-private partnership (PPP) signed in 2017 between the city of Belgrade and the consortium, named Beo Cista Energija (BCE), to develop a project to recover waste from the inhabitants of the Serbian capital, Suez said in a statement on Monday.
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BCE has committed to invest 285 million euro ($320.7 million) to build the infrastructure that will process 500,000 tonnes of municipal waste and 200,000 tonnes of construction and demolition waste each year. The operation will be handled by Suez and will start gradually from 2020, Suez said.
"Alongside our partners Itochu and Marguerite, the Group is proud to support Belgrade in its energy transition by enabling it to reduce its environmental impacts. This public-private partnership is one of the biggest in the Western Balkans," the group senior executive vice president in charge of France, Italy and Central Europe, Marie-Ange Debon, said in the statement.
The energy-from-waste facility will produce up to 30 MW of electricity, plus 56 MW of heat purchased by the municipal company Beogradske Elektrane, reducing the natural gas consumption of its Konjarnik plant by 80% in the cold season.
"Beogradske Elektrane is proud to contribute to this landmark project by providing Belgrade’s inhabitants and businesses with a renewable heat source consistent with the principles of the circular economy," the company's general manager Rade Basta said.
This PPP project also includes the gradual closure of the existing Belgrade landfill located in the immediate suburbs of Vinca, on the banks of the Danube.
The Belgrade city government hopes to issue a building permit for the construction of the waste-to-energy facility by the end of the third quarter of 2019, deputy mayor Goran Vesic said last month.
($ = 0.8887 euro)