Sofia picks Greek consortium to build refuse-derived fuel plant
Sofia city hall said on April 26 that it picked the consortium between Greek companies Aktor and Helektor to build the plant that will make waste-based biofuel, the second phase of the planned waste processing facility that will service the Bulgarian capital city.
The Aktor-Helektor consortium was picked despite offering a higher price of 213.5 million leva (about 109 million euro) because it offered a lower cost of processing waste – 60.69 leva a tonne, compared to the 72.43 leva a tonne offered by the second-placed bidder, Sadinata 2012 consortium.
The consortium’s offer would also lead to a significantly lower amount of waste to be deposited in landfills, which was in line with the city hall’s targets.
The fuel produced by the plant will be used by the city’s heating utility, Toplofikatsiya Sofia, and would reduce the company’s usage of natural gas by at least 10 per cent, the city hall said in a statement.
The two consortiums were the only ones whose bids were deemed to meet the tender criteria, with three other offers disqualified.
Aktor-Helektor will have 19 months after the signing of the contract to build the plant. This is the second stage of a 346 million leva waste management project, funded largely with EU money. In total, EU funding will cover 84 per cent of the costs of the project.
(Refuse is one of the issues that keeps resurfacing in Bulgarian capital city Sofia, whose own landfill is already full and the city has had to negotiate, in recent years, with other towns to move its refuse to their storage facilities. Photo: Klearchos Kapoutsis/flickr.com)
