The TV ERF is a critical and essential piece of infrastructure for the North-East which will provide the region with a safe, reliable, sustainable and affordable treatment solution for its “residual” waste (the rubbish left over after recycling), helping move towards the goal of sending zero waste to landfill.
The facility will be located at the Teesworks site in Redcar, on part of the former British Steel works at Grangetown. The project will support the regeneration of this industrial brownfield site, creating hundreds of jobs during the construction period and up to 50 permanent positions once operational.
Each year, it is envisaged that the new facility will process up to 450,000 tonnes of residual waste from the region and use it to generate up to 49.9MW of electricity – enough to power the equivalent of 60,000 homes.
Seven local authorities (Darlington, Durham, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Newcastle, Redcar & Cleveland and Stockton) are working in partnership to develop the TV ERF project.
The existing residual waste treatment solutions of the seven partner authorities are due to expire over the next few years and this provided an excellent opportunity for the joint procurement of a new, long-term, resilient, solution within the full control of the partner authorities that will deliver economies of scale to each of the partners.
Following an extensive competitive procurement process, Viridor was selected as Preferred Tenderer in July 2025 and is expected to be awarded a 29-year contract to design, build, finance and operate the facility in accordance with its Tender response, with the potential to extend this contract by a further eleven years.
Hartlepool Borough Council led the tender process, which was overseen by a governance board representing all seven councils.
You can find out more in the full FAQ document.
In addition to providing an essential sanitation service and a sustainable means of treating the region’s residual waste, the TV ERF project will contribute towards the regeneration and development of the local area.
The specific section of the Teesworks site allocated for the TV ERF is a 22-acre plot known as Grangetown Prairie 2. Locating the facility here, alongside other new circular-economy infrastructure, will contribute to the regeneration and development of the site and support the local economy.
The TV ERF project will also create several hundred jobs during the construction period (peaking at approximately 700 workers on site) and up to 50 permanent positions once operational.
The TV ERF project is a critical and essential part of the waste management strategies of the partner authorities and will provide a safe, reliable, sustainable and affordable residual waste treatment solution from 2029 – ultimately contributing towards the councils’ shared long-term goal of sending zero waste to landfill.
Prior to initiating the tender process, the respective waste strategies for the Tees Valley authorities, Newcastle City Council and Durham County Council were subject to consultation – both with the public and statutory consultees.
The safe treatment and disposal of waste is vital for maintaining a sanitary environment and protecting public health but treating residual waste, like most industrial processes, does create greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). These are very challenging emissions to avoid but, as part of the TV ERF tender specification, the chosen operator will be required to reduce carbon emissions from this operation year-on-year over the duration of the contract.
Energy recovery is a lower-carbon solution for the treatment of residual waste compared with landfill, which is the only viable alternative at this scale. For context, approximately 200kg of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) is saved for every tonne of residual waste sent to energy recovery instead of landfill – although the relative performance can vary within a range depending on specific local circumstances.
In future, potentially exporting heat as well as electricity from the TV ERF will increase the plant’s efficiency, further improving its performance compared with landfill. The residual waste stream can be further decarbonised through the removal of more plastics by increased recycling and waste reduction measures, while carbon capture and storage technology holds the potential to mitigate remaining net emissions in future.
Modern energy recovery facilities are among the most heavily regulated industrial installations in the world and must meet strict environmental standards. The TV ERF will use mature, proven and reliable technology to process waste. In practice, these facilities often operate at just a fraction of permitted emissions levels and, as a result, make only a small, if detectable, contribution to local concentrations of pollutants such that any impact on health from reduced air quality is negligible.
The TV ERF will employ a range of industry-standard flue-gas treatment technologies to remove pollutants and particulate matter from the gases produced during the combustion process, before they are dispersed through the stack. These technologies will separate and capture particulate matter and pollutants by filtering them from the gases. The substance left over from this filtration process is known as Air Pollution Control residue (APCr) – which itself can be treated and recycled through specialist processes.
Once the flue gases have been treated, those that are released through the stack are dispersed at height to ensure they are not concentrated at ground level and they are constantly monitored – with strict safety controls in place. The TV ERF will be regulated and closely monitored by the Environment Agency, which will only grant an environmental permit for the facility to the chosen operators if it is satisfied that the plant can operate within the stringent regulations.
The UK Health Security Agency (Formerly Public Health England) commissioned a study by Imperial College London in 2019 investigating the health effects of municipal waste incineration, which found that modern, well-run, energy recovery facilities are not a significant risk to public health. PHE concluded that, while it is not possible to rule out adverse health effects from these incinerators completely, any potential effect for people living close by is likely to be very small. This view is based on detailed assessments of the effects of air pollutants on health and on the fact that these incinerators make only a very small contribution to local concentrations of air pollutants.
You can find out more about how energy recovery emissions are treated here.
Recruitment will be the responsibility Viridor, which will design, build, finance and operate the TV ERF in due course. However, that process is not due to begin until 2026 subject to achieving Financial Close (the signing of contracts between parties).
Viridor and its sub-contractors will no doubt share details of employment opportunities, and the process for registering interest in employment opportunities associated with the project, publicly in due course. The construction of the facility is due to be completed in 2029.