John Laing Group to put £28m into Australian waste-to-energy project

Infrastructure investor John Laing Group has entered into an agreement to invest AUD 51.5m (£28m) in the East Rockingham Resource Recovery Facility in Perth, Australia, it announced on Tuesday.

The FTSE 250 company said the investment would take its total investment commitment in 2019 to approximately £185m.

It said the utility scale, AUD 510.8m waste-to-energy plant would help to address Australia's rising waste management problem by diverting waste from landfill, and would also generate 28.96MW of renewable baseload energy to support Western Australia's electricity network.

When operational, the centre would process around 300,000 tonnes of residual waste per year - said to be the equivalent of taking 70,000 cars off the road.

It was expected to create around 300 jobs during construction, and between 40 and 50 during operation.

John Laing said the project had been co-developed by organisations including New Energy Corporation, Hitachi Zosen Inova, Acciona, and Tribe Infrastructure Group, with John Laing investing alongside Hitachi Zosen Inova and Acciona.

The centre was expected to be operational by 2023.

“We are delighted to be a part of this project that will develop an important piece of infrastructure for Western Australia,” said John Laing Group’s regional managing director for Asia-Pacific, Justin Bailey.

“Not only will it deliver a sustainable waste management solution but it will also make a critical contribution towards Australia's emission reduction targets.

“We are committed to delivering responsible infrastructure projects that will improve the local environments and communities they serve, and we look forward to working with our partners to deliver this exciting project.”