The A$511 million East Rockingham Resource Recovery Facility (ERRRF) will help tackle Australia’s rising waste management problem by diverting waste from landfill. It will also generate renewable baseload energy to support WA’s electricity network. The CEFC is committing up to A$57.5 million towards the facility. This subordinated debt facility is the first of its kind for the EfW sector in Australia and provides capital structure innovation for the project.
When complete, the ERRRF will process about 300,000 tonnes of residual waste a year, reducing annual emissions by more than 300,000 tonnes of CO2-e, the equivalent of taking about 64,000 cars off the road. The state-of-the-art facility will also generate 29MW of renewable baseload electricity for the South West Interconnected System – enough to power more than 36,000 homes. It is expected to employ about 300 workers, including apprentices during construction, and up to 50 operations staff on an ongoing basis when complete.
The ERRRF has entered into a power purchase agreement with Talison Lithium Australia for 25MW of its generating capacity. It has also secured long-term supply contracts for a significant portion of its waste from the Eastern Metropolitan Regional Council and the City of Cockburn. Importantly, the ERRRF is the first of its kind in Australia to use “waste-arising” contracts, giving councils the ability to continue to pursue waste reduction targets with waste supply commitments to the ERRRF. This type of innovative contractual framework will help support WA’s Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery Strategy 2030.
