Sembcorp Industries (SCI) said it will invest over $250 million to build, own and operate a facility capable of producing 140 tonnes per hour of steam using industrial and commercial waste collected by Sembcorp's solid waste management operations.

The development of this plant is in line with the company's drive to offer the best and most competitive solutions to its customers, while helping them reduce their carbon footprint.

This will be its largest energy-from-waste plant in Singapore to date.

To be located in the Sakra area of Jurong Island, the new facility will consist of two boilers capable of producing a combined 140 tonnes per hour of high-pressure process steam. This investment will be funded through a combination of bank borrowings and internal sources.

To be completed in early 2016, the facility will offer an economical, environmentally-friendly source of steam to serve the needs of petrochemical manufacturers in the vicinity.

The plant will offer a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared with a coal-fired steam plant, cutting carbon dioxide emissions by about half.

The plant will be fuelled by around 1,000 tonnes of industrial and commercial waste per day, which is some 14 per cent of the total tonnage of waste bound for incineration in Singapore every day.

The facility strengthens synergies between Sembcorp's energy business and its solid waste management operations, through the conversion of waste, which would otherwise be sent for disposal, into energy in the form of steam for Sembcorp's customers.

Said SCI group president and chief executive Tang Kin Fei: "This new energy-from-waste plant...will reduce our cost of energy production on Jurong Island and enable us to provide our customers a competitively-priced, environmentally-friendly source of steam."