A\u00a0multi-million dollar waste to energy project in Chatham-Kent (CK) is moving\u00a0forward with some\u00a0staff recommendations.<\/p>\n
A staff report going before Council on Monday evening recommends establishing a Municipal Services Corporation to oversee the proposed Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) Energy from Waste facility and enter into a $25 million loan agreement\u00a0between the municipality\u00a0and the new\u00a0corporation, if Council\u00a0approves\u00a0investing in the facility.<\/p>\n
Staff said Infrastructure Ontario will only lend funds directly to the municipality, which would then lend the funds to the newly proposed corporation for the project.<\/p>\n
“The municipality could not borrow the entire required debt amount from Infrastructure Ontario. The project team has made the decision to recommend borrowing $25M from Infrastructure Ontario for a term of 15 or 20 years, with the rest of the debt being secured from private commercial sources,” said administration.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0waste to energy project is a partnership between CK and Greenfield Global\u00a0and proposes an anaerobic digestion facility to convert industrial, commercial, and institutional organic waste into Renewable Natural Gas to divert material from landfill and produce a clean energy source.<\/p>\n
The proposed facility in CK has been in the works for five years and is expected to serve several municipalities, the report showed.<\/p>\n
It’s\u00a0also expected to deliver significant\u00a0environmental and operational benefits and aligns with Council\u2019s climate and waste management goals.<\/p>\n
Administration noted\u00a0the project has now secured $45 million in federal Clean Fuels Fund support structures as an interest-free loan repayable over 10 years once profitable.<\/p>\n
It has also secured approximately $5 million\u00a0in Federal Economic Development Agency funding,\u00a0totalling approximately $60 million\u00a0in funding secured from upper levels of government.<\/p>\n
The current estimated cost of the plant is approximately $160 million.<\/p>\n
The municipality has a 40 per cent share of the $40 million in equity ($16 million) and is responsible for 40 per cent of the anticipated\u00a0$60-$70 million in debt financing required after federal funding is\u00a0subtracted and\u00a0depending on\u00a0final capital cost estimates.<\/p>\n
“Costs that escalated during 2022 and 2023 have now stabilized and the engineering work has been ramped up to be ready to proceed to tender this summer,” staff wrote in the report. “Costs are aligning with expectations of a successful project. Complete financial projections, along with a review from a third-party auditor, will accompany the final go\/no go decision report in April. This report will include the necessary information to satisfy Council and the Greenfield Global Board or Directors on whether it is financially advantageous to approve the joint venture.”<\/p>\n
Council is expected to make a decision\u00a0on April 27.<\/p>\n
If approved, the anaerobic digester will be built on Bloomfield Road in Chatham across from Greenfield Global.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A\u00a0multi-million dollar waste to energy project in Chatham-Kent (CK) is moving\u00a0forward with some\u00a0staff recommendations. A staff report going…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-490517","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}