Provision of temporary access, insulation, and protective coating services for cyclic maintenance, outage/shutdown works, and emergency breakdown cover.

Earls Gate Energy Centre EfW is a new energy recovery facility in Grangemouth, Scotland, built to support the UK’s environmental goals of landfill diversion and energy security. The Energy-from-Waste facility produces 22MW of baseload electricity while delivering 33MW of heat to neighbouring industrial plants, which reduces the need for fossil fuels.

The Energy-from-Waste facility, jointly owned by Encyclis and Brockwell Energy Ltd, commenced full-scale commercial operations in 2024 with a sustainable treatment capacity for processing up to 216,000 tonnes of commercial and domestic residual waste per year through controlled combustion. This significantly reduces the need for landfill, in accordance with legislative reduction targets set by the Scottish Government on waste treatment, while providing low-carbon, baseload energy generation in parallel with creating a long-term sustainable disposal point for municipal waste by supporting the principles of a circular economy.

When waste arrives at the energy recovery facility, it is weighed and tipped directly into a collection bunker before being delivered into combustion chambers reaching temperatures above 850°C, where the process heats water in steel tubes within the boiler. The water is then converted to superheated steam and delivered to a turbine that continuously generates electricity for onwards transmission. All emissions from burning the waste are filtered and cleaned before being released via tall flue stacks as a vapour. The residual ash from the furnace is then collected separately and taken away for recycling and metal recovery to extract ferrous and non-ferrous metals and separate any suitable materials for conversion into aggregates.

Kanadevia Inova is recognised globally for its specialist capabilities in designing, building and commissioning state-of-the-art waste treatment facilities, and Brockwell Energy and Encyclis have awarded them a 25-year (O&M) contract at the Earls Gate Energy Centre. To execute the commissioning start-up activities, followed by providing long-term operations and maintenance support.

Enigma first engaged with the Earls Gate Energy from Waste facility in October 2024, supplying insulation operatives for a scheduled outage early in 2025, and was subsequently invited to tender for the boiler component outage works planned for October 2025. So, our in-house design and engineering team worked closely with the site operations team, who shared plans of the chamber layout, enabling us to produce a detailed plan utilising the HAKI scaffolding system in preparation for commencing the boiler works.

However, in February 2025, a boiler tube leak occurred, necessitating immediate action to repair it, so we quickly immobilised by erecting access solutions within the affected boiler areas: Passes 1, 2, and 3. The initial builds were undertaken from ground level in Pass 1 and beam levels in Passes 2 and 3, utilising HAKI components. We then implemented additional beams to carry the standards to overcome the misalignment of bay sizes. The installation enabled a comprehensive safety inspection to be carried out inside the chambers before engineers and specialist welders entered the workspace to complete the identified remedial repair works. We soon discovered that all three passes required additional scaffolding to permit access, escalating the project to a full outage. This entailed ordering more scaffold material to the site and revising our planned drawings to accommodate these changes. All scaffolders working inside the boiler compartments had medium-risk confined space training and received face-fitting sessions for FFP3 (filtering facepiece respirator) masks.

To minimise any disruption for the client, a strategic shift in project delivery was implemented with an Enigma Contracts Supervisor managing split shifts to oversee productivity across both day and night teams. This change significantly improved progress, ensuring the completion of works within the agreed timeframe. Because restrictive access meant scaffold operatives had to manually hoist equipment upwards to the higher building levels.

Enigma-is has a residual team of insulators working on site, facilitating the removal and re-application of rockwool and mats, along with fabricating box sections.

To resume full operations onsite without delay on completion of the boiler repairs, the client presented a timeline deadline for dismantling and removing the erected scaffolds. Our team successfully removed all temporary access structures ahead of schedule by approximately 12 hours, demonstrating exceptional efficiency and commitment to planning and coordination on-site.

This collaboration and ability to pivot and address unforeseen challenges were perceived positively by the client, laying the foundation for future partnership opportunities. A scaffold storage yard has been created on-site, equipped with racking systems to keep equipment organised and tidy. Plus, we have also packed the boiler material and stored it separately, ready for fast deployment should any emergencies arise in the future.