The City of Surrey has announced the three qualified teams shortlisted for the City of Surrey Biofuel Processing Facility project in British Columbia, Canada.

Of the 11 teams that responded to the Request for Qualifications (RFQ), only three teams have been shortlisted to move forward to the Request for Proposals (RFP) stage:

• Iris Solutions
• Plenary Harvest Surrey (led by Plenary Group)
• Urbaser S.A. (part of ACS group)

The city plans to select a preferred bidder by the fall and finalize an agreement by late 2014. The construction is expected to start in early 2015, and the facility is schedule to be operational by late 2016.

The project will be developed on a design, build, finance, operate and maintain (DBFOM) basis via a long-term agreement. The project cost is estimated at CAD$60 million (US$54 million). As an added financial benefit, the Government of Canada has agreed to contribute up to CAD$16.9 million of the capital costs of the project through its "Public Private Partnerships Canada" fund.

The facility will process residential and commercial kitchen and yard waste into a renewable fuel, which will be used to power our new waste trucks. The 80,000 metric tonne per year facility will be the largest of its kind in Canada and will help the City and Metro Vancouver achieve the regional 70 per cent waste diversion target by 2015.

The new program has already led to a 43 per cent reduction in garbage sent to the landfill. Once the biofuel facility is operating, Surrey will be home to the only fully-integrated organics waste management system in North America.