03-08-2025
Carbon capture system installed at Parc Adfer, Deeside
enfinium's Parc Adfe plant, on Deeside Industrial Estate, opened in 2019 and processes around 200,000 tonnes of waste a year – turning it into energy, powering 170,000 homes.
Society produces significant amounts of residual unrecyclable waste – material that remains after efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle. Before facilities like Parc Adfer, it used to end up in landfill sites.
It works by burning waste at high temperatures, producing high pressure steam in a boiler. The steam drives the blades of a turbine generator to generate electricity.
Residual ash, produced from the waste-to-energy process, is then used in the construction of roads, and metals are removed during the process and recycled.
The next challenge at Parc Adfer is to decarbonise the residual waste stream – and the solution has been to install a CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) facility as a pilot project.
Carbon capture will not only decarbonise the waste sector, it will transform plants like Parc Adfer into significant Carbon Removals sources.
Over 50 per cent of the residual waste processed at Parc Adfer is biogenic – meaning that the carbon this waste releases was recently present in the atmosphere (from food, plants ect). If captured and permanently stored, this will result in a net removal from the atmosphere.
The carbon capture facility at Parc Adfer. (Image: Newsquest) enfinium hopes the CCS will remove 120,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, which is roughly equivalent to removing 89,000 cars from the road.
The company is waiting on the outcome of its bid to UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to make Parc Adfer part of the Hynet Cluster project – which will see carbon captured from the region's industry and transported via an underground pipeline to Liverpool Bay where it will be held in depleted oil and gas fields in the Irish Sea.
Mike Maudsley, CEO, of enfinium, said: 'By piloting carbon capture technology at our Parc Adfer facility, we're not only progressing our plans to deploy the technology at scale here in North Wales, but we're demonstrating the critical role our sector can play in Wales's transition to a circular, decarbonised economy.
'Waste to energy facilities fitted with carbon capture have a superpower – an ability not only to decarbonise society's unrecyclable waste, but to use this to actively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
"With CCS installed, Parc Adfer will become the largest carbon removals project in Wales, creating and supporting skilled jobs, generating lasting growth in the region, and supporting Wales's world-leading efforts to create a sustainable, circular economy.'
