The UK’s energy from waste (EfW) industry is an important part of the UK’s electricity mix and makes an important contribution to the UK’s recycling targets by redirecting waste from landfill sites and using it as fuel.

MVV Environment Baldovie is the newest to be built in Dundee, recovering energy by combusting waste which will then be converted into electricity to be used directly within the community.

With construction already underway, the process has begun to employ the skills needed to operate the facility.

As the exclusive recruiter for MVV Umwelt GmbH on this project, Dan Grosvenor shares his insight into the project.

Why is Energy from Waste important:

What does MVV Environment Baldovie Energy from Waste hope to achieve?

The main objective of the plant is to utilise waste that otherwise would have been sent to landfill and to generate electricity to export to the national grid in addition to being a brand new replacement for the existing Baldovie Energy from Waste plant.

The original DERL incinerator, which processes 120,000 tonnes of waste per year (across two lines) to produce approximately 8.3MW to the grid is an older plant, and the new Baldovie EfW third line will add a further 110,000 of capacity to station.

With larger and older stations closing every year and the demand for electricity increasing, Energy from Waste plants such as Baldovie EfW are there to make up the shortfall.

To put it into perspective, Eggborough power station in Yorkshire has a generating capacity of 2000MW.

The new Baldovie Energy from Waste plant is expected to export 9MW to the national grid.

Therefore, it would roughly take 117 plants the size of Baldovie lines 1, 2 & 3 to produce the same MW as Eggborough.

How long will construction take?

Construction started on the project in 2018 and commissioning is expected to take place around Spring 2020.

What sort of jobs are on offer and when will the recruitment drive end?

We are recruiting a partial operation and maintenance team as they already have staff on the operational lines 1 & 2 so need to supplement the workforce to effectively run the three lines. Roles we have been tasked with recruiting include:

Shift Team Leaders
Senior Assistant Shift Team Leaders
Assistant Shift Team Leaders
Assistant Shift Team Leader (Technical Support)
Maintenance Engineers
EC&I Technicians
Waste Supervisors

What are the ideal skills needed to work on this type of project?

For engineering and maintenance roles: a thorough understanding of electrical, mechanical or C&I equipment found on a modern-day Energy from Waste facility and the processes and procedures that are associated with maintaining this equipment.

For Operations roles: for the more senior of the operations roles, an understanding of operational procedures involved with steam raising plant/steam generation.

Are transferrable skills from other industries useful?

Engineering and maintenance: Transferable maintenance skills can be brought across from most other heavy process plants as maintenance procedures and processes are very similar as is the equipment they would be working on.

These types of facilities can range from steelworks, paper mills, pharmaceutical plants, refineries, foundries, cement works, and so on.

Manufacturing can sometimes also be useful as they bring a continuous improvement approach to the team which isn’t as widely used amongst other industries.

Operations: The bracket for transferable skills from other industries is far smaller when it comes to operations due to the nature of the job.

The operations team is essentially responsible for ensuring waste is constantly being incinerated to heat up water in boiler tubes to create steam to drive a steam turbine connected to a generator.

Therefore, transferable skills from refineries, combined heat & power plants or chemical plants would fall into this bracket – any type of facility where they are creating steam for a purpose.

Ex-military engineers are also suitable for positions on power stations.

Royal Navy Marine Engineer skillsets match up closely with both operations and maintenance roles as they are effectively running a small-scale power station on or underwater.

Astute has placed many ex-Royal Navy Engineers over the years into Technician level roles up to Management positions.

What level of job security can I expect if I worked at the Baldovie Energy from Waste?

The plant is under a 25-year operating contract, this is an industry with an extremely high level of job security as all households produce waste and we will always need electricity.

With the bigger coal stations closing the electricity demand will be heavily reliant on these smaller Energy from Waste plants.

What can I expect to earn?

Salary levels will obviously depend on the job role.

I’d say the salaries are slightly above the UK average for the Energy from Waste sector.

Many roles below management level come with overtime available and 33 days holiday including bank holiday.

What career opportunities or skills will I gain from this project?

Joining at the start of the project will give you an opportunity to see the plant through the final construction phases into commissioning and mobilisation.

This is a great time to get involved as this scenario obviously only happens once as once operational the plant will continuously run 24/7 (apart from a yearly outage or unexpected breakdown).

These initial phases allow staff to learn every part of the plant by working with the construction and commissioning teams. Employees are also put on numerous training courses to get them prepared for when the plant goes fully operational.

Mobilisation experience is useful as many other new build plants will prioritise candidates with on their CV.

Aside from being in at the early stages, you will gain experience on a plant with the latest state of the art technology which may be far different or more advanced than the facility you’ve come from.