黑洞社区

Interserve is likely to have run into problems on its disastrous energy-from-waste schemes because of issues with the technology being used rather than building woes, experts have told 黑洞社区, write Paul Withers and Dave Rogers.

The firm, which last month added a further 拢35m to its mounting bill to get out of the sector, won a scheme to build an energy-from-waste (EfW) facility in Glasgow back in 2012.

But it was thrown off the job last November by its client Viridor 鈥� weeks after saying it was pulling out of the market completely 鈥� and has been forced to admit the cost of pulling the plug on the sector now stands at close to 拢200m.

The Glasgow job is one of two using a process called gasification to turn thousands of tonnes of domestic household rubbish into energy and on which the firm is also the engineering, procurement and construction contractor.

In an update last month, Interserve said the second scheme in Derby for the city and county councils is expected to be completed in the first half of next year.

Experts have said Interserve has been caught out because it did not understand the technology that was going into the plants at Glasgow and Derby.

Former Balfour Beatty executive Nick Pollard, who is now in charge of recycling firm Cory Riverside Energy, said: 鈥淚f you don鈥檛 understand the risk or don鈥檛 have the people to construct that asset, don鈥檛 do it.鈥�

And Jacob Hayler, the executive director of specialist trade body Environmental Services Association, warned: 鈥淚f you aren鈥檛 going to go for the traditional combustion process, it is a risk.鈥�

Gasification requires the pre-processing of waste material, and Hayler added: 鈥淭here鈥檚 a large mix of waste that households throw away and that has proven difficult for the newer technologies to handle.鈥�

Simon Rawlinson, head of strategic research at consultant Arcadis, said: 鈥淚f you look at the Interserve EfW issues, I suspect they aren鈥檛 construction issues but rather around technology performance. One is whether they can isolate the right waste streams, and that has proven to be quite a problem.鈥�

The firm declined to comment further on what it has already said in stock exchange announcements, but a source close to the business claimed it had blundered when targeting EfW as a new market sector.

鈥淚nterserve had their eyes closed going into the energy-from-waste sector,鈥� the source added. 鈥淎t the time, construction was just ticking along and margins were stagnant.

A lot of revenue was being made but not much profit. In an attempt to drive those margins up, Interserve took a risk.鈥�

Interserve has three other EfW schemes to complete where it is the building and civils contractor only and which use either the mass burn or biomass processes. It said these will be finished in the first half of next year but also warned that 鈥渟ignificant uncertainty remains鈥� on when all its EfW schemes will be commissioned