Image: Rookery South Pilot

Encyclis has activated its pilot carbon capture plant, progressing its mission to deploy full-scale carbon capture in UK EfW. 

Following installation and commissioning by Kanadevia Inova, the pilot plant at Rookery South Energy Recovery Facility (ERF), in Bedfordshire, has now started operations and is capturing around one tonne of carbon per day.

The pilot plant will be operational for the next 16 months to support the commissioning of the full-scale carbon capture plant which Encyclis is aiming to build at its Protos ERF, in Cheshire. The Protos facility was selected as one of the commissioning projects in the industrial decarbonisation programme introduced by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).

When delivered, the project is expected to prevent around 370,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year from being released into the atmosphere from the treatment of non-recyclable waste at Protos ERF.

Meanwhile, the carbon capture pilot plant has been set up by Kanadevia Inova at the fully-operational Rookery South ERF to verify the design and specifications of the planned deployment at Protos ERF. The pilot plant will also enable Encyclis to showcase the technology to key stakeholders and funders who are supporting the project.

Owen Michaelson, CEO of Encyclis, said: “Our driving ambition is to deliver on the promise of carbon capture with full, commercial-scale deployment, and the activation of the pilot plant is a significant step towards that. It is a tribute to the expertise of our engineers, and our design, construction and operating partners at Kanadevia Inova, that we have reached this milestone.

By applying carbon capture to the Energy-from-Waste process, we can continue to deliver an essential public sanitation service through the ongoing treatment of society’s residual waste, using a process that generates baseload electricity, recovers resources and produces heat, but now with the advantage of preventing the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – strengthening our role in the transition to a more circular economy. In addition, the non-fossil proportion of the waste we process unlocks the potential to deliver carbon dioxide removals, which are going to be so important to the Net Zero journey."

The pilot plant will sample around 0.1% of flue gases from Rookery South ERF and produce data on process performance before releasing the CO₂ back into the facility’s core system.