Dive Brief:

• The Babcock & Wilcox Company is constructing a solid waste energy plant at the Solid Waste Authority of the Palm Beach County Renewable Energy Park in Florida. 
• The company says the plant is the first municipal waste-to-energy (WTE) plant built in the US since 1995.
• The facility expects to process up to 3,000 tons of waste annually. The total capacity of waste converted into electricity on-site site will be approximately 1.7 million tons per year, and the power generated at the facility will be enough to drive 85,000 households.

Dive Insight:

Babcock & Wilcox anticipates the facility will be completed sometime in the middle of 2015, with test operations starting in the winter. The finished plant will cost a total of around $600 million and will be capable of using up to 99% of the municipal solid waste it receives.

Palm Beach Recovery Corp., a subsidiary of Babcock & Wilcox’s Power Generation Group, will operate the facility. The company says it anticipates more WTE projects breaking ground as markets begin to embrace WTE as new federal guidelines for greenhouse gas emissions take effect. The adoption of the regulations to reduce carbon emissions and greenhouse gas will propel the incineration of solid waste as converting MSW into electricity becomes a viable alternative for municipalities.