Technical Consultancy during the Design, Construction and Commissioning of Two MBT Facilities

ORA is appointed technical advisor to Lancashire County Council (LCC) for their waste management PFI project. LCC set out to procure a waste network with 11 intergrated waste management facilities comprising three MBT facilities, seven enclosed composting facilities, one MRF, and seven waste transfer stations. Following the invitation to negotiate (ITN) submissions, revise and confirm bid (RACB) and preffered bidder stages of the process this was rationalised to two MBT (with AD) facilities each with a capacity of 170 ktpa, two enclosed composting facilites each of 55 ktpa, one MRF with a capacity of 50 ktpa and one dry recyclate transfer station with a capacity of 48 ktpa.

In the role of technical advisors to LCC, ORA undertook the following tasks for the project:

• Preparation of the technical section of the invitation to submit outline proposals (ISOP) documents.
• Preparation of the technical section of the ITN documents.
• Evaluation of the responses to the ITN documents, including clarifications with bidders.
• Preparation of the technical section of the RACB documents.
• Evaluation of the responses to the RACB documents, including clarification with the bidders and visits to reference plants.

Following the appointment of the preffered bidder, ORA and LCC officers worked to resolve points of clarification, to define the scope of their service and the specification of the waste management facilities for the project. This has included:

• Evaluating capital, operating and maintenance costs in terms of value for money.
• Technical due diligence on the MBT with AD, IVC (in vessel composting) and MRF processes, including site visits, sampling and analysis, and on the mass balances.
• Monitoring the performance of an MBT with AD facility in Australia.
• Establishing plant performance under LATS and development of emission limits.
• Providing data to go into the final business case.
• Developing performance guarantees for BMW diversion.
• Negotiating waste composition ranges and actions following deviation.
• Negotiating contractual waste audit procedures.
• Providing technical advice for the development of the Output Specification.
• Review of the Works Delivery Plan to stay in line with the specifications in the RACB.

As LCC's technical adviser, ORA attended a series of public exhibitions for the four sites organised to inform local residents of the proposed facilities.

Following financial close in 2007, ORA was retained by LCC as technical consultants and advised on and monitored the design and construction of the two central waste treatment facilities, each comprising MBT (170ktpa) with enclosed composting (55ktpa), a transfer station and an MRF (50ktpa).

The core functions of the service that was delivered by ORA were:

• Identification of issues likely to cause delay and identification of appropriate mitigation measures.
• Identification of issues likely to have cost implication and identification of appropriate mitigation measures.
• To ensure that the contractors designed and built the facilities in accordance with the works delivery plan and agreed changes.
• Assessment of and recommendations for methods to optimise the network performance of the facilities.
• Document controller for LCC.
• Provision of an independent assessment of all works undertaken by W2R (the construction contractor) and their sub-contractors.
• Monitoring of progress through commissioning and up to practical completion.

ORA continues to monitor the performance of the facilities on site during commissioning and report to LCC on progress towards acceptance tests and full service commencement. As part of their on-going brief ORA reviews all proposed facility changes and comment of their suitability.