OREANDA-NEWS. July 23, 2012. Together with the Swedish Svenska Handelsbanken, KfW IPEX-Bank is providing finance to enable the construction of a thermal waste recovery plant in Plymouth in southwest England through MVV Energie AG, an energy company in Mannheim, Germany. The project is a public private sector partnership. The contracting authority is the South West Devon Waste Partnership (SWDWP), which comprises three regional authorities that came together specifically for the project. The SWDWP contracted with MVV Umwelt from Mannheim in Germany, a subsidiary of MVV Energie AG in Mannheim, to undertake the planning, building and operation of the new facility for a period of 25 years. Essential components of the plant engineering equipment also come from Germany: Baumgarte Boiler Systems from Duisburg is supplying the boiler, Stuttgarter LAB the flue gas cleaning equipment, the Hamburg service provider Imtech is supplying the energy and building technology and SAR Electronic from Landshut the industrial and process automation.

"In order for the United Kingdom to achieve the long-term EU environmental goals, it is vital to make more investments in the waste management and recycling sector - a market with great potential for specialised German firms, which we support as a bank through our international business. For MVV Energie AG and the SME suppliers the project serves as an important reference point for further activities," said Markus Scheer, member of the Management Board of KfW IPEX-Bank. “With the new plant in Plymouth,” added Dr Georg Muller, Chairman of the Board of MVV Energie AG, “we can profitably apply our years of experience and our internationally valued expertise in environmentally friendly waste recovery in the British market.”

“We are pleased that we could contribute with our structuring know-how to this complex transaction and thereby help implement a successful project,” commented Jurgen Ding, Head of Svenska Handelsbanken Mannheim branch and responsible for the project, upon completion.

The total investment costs amount to about EUR 250 million. In addition to waste disposal and energy recovery, the energy from waste plant also helps fulfil important EU environmental regulations.

Both banks provide equal shares of the funding, which is partly in British pounds. The funding amounts to the equivalent of about EUR 200 million and is structured as a purpose-tied and unsecured corporate loan to MVV Energie AG. The European Investment Bank (EIB) also plans to provide MVV Energie AG with a long-term investment loan for the project.

The use of the latest technologies in Plymouth ensures low emissions with high energy efficiency. Using a combined heat and power process in the new energy from waste plant, the project company MVV Umwelt will supply the

generated electricity and heat primarily to a British naval base located in Plymouth. The facility has the technical nominal capacity to convert 265,000 tonnes of waste into energy per year.

MVV Energie AG is one of the leading German energy utilities in the field of electricity, district heating, gas and water, energy services and environment. The group of companies, which has an annual turnover of about EUR 3.6 billion and stakes in municipal utilities throughout Germany, is also active across Europe. MVV Energie AG is the only publicly listed utility in Germany. KfW IPEX-Bank has already assisted the MVV Energie Group with several financings. The most recent transaction underscores the good cooperation between them.