Anaerobic Digester Expressions of Interest-Milton Keynes Council

Milton Keynes Council is seeking Expressions of Interest from suppliers in attending a supplier engagement session to explore the potential for a contract to design, build and operate an anaerobic digester in Milton Keynes. A brief scope of what Milton Keynes Council is looking to explore is as follows: The Council currently collects 25,000 tonnes of mixed food and garden waste annually, with c20% of the arisings being food waste.

It also collects 3,500 tonnes of garden waste from civic amenity sites. A business case has been developed for the processing of this material locally in Milton Keynes using a 50,000 tonnes per annum dry anaerobic digestion (AD) plant, over a 20 year period (plus 2 -3 years construction) The plant is sized to accommodate the anticipated growth of Milton Keynes and the seasonality of the garden waste arisings.

In order for the current business case to be viable, it will require a minimum of 10,000 tonnes of third party tonnage, of a composition similar to food waste. This would need to be sourced by the operator.

The business model envisages that the energy outputs of the AD will be used as per the following hierarchy: • A small Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant to supply the running requirements of AD itself • Gas fuel to power the Council's fleet of waste and recycling vehicles ( likely to take c10% of the gas output). The site will therefore incorporate a fuelling station. • Injection of the remaining gas into the national gas grid.

The Council already has a grant for purchase of gas injection equipment. The Council wishes to engage with potential suppliers to this contract, and to test the soundness of its business case before embarking on this procurement route.