The opening of the plant follows on from the 15-year, €102m contract signed between Osiris GIE and Suez Environnement in October 2014.
Suez Environnement deputy chief executive officer in charge of Waste Europe Christophe Cros said: "This contract illustrates our desire to put the circular economy at the heart of our strategy: by transforming waste into new resources, we play a significant role in the energy transition of our industrial customers.
"The steam produced by ROBIN is a local and renewable green energy source which secures our partners’ essential resources of the future."
The plant produces high-pressure steam at a rate of 25 tonnes per hour, supplied entirely to the industrial firms operating at the the Roussillon Chemical platform via OSIRIS GIE.
The facility produces steam using waste like wood from forestry activities, rejects from the paper recycling process and previously non-recyclable woods such as treated timber.
It uses fluidised bed boiler technology, which will allow 85% of the energy contained in the fuels to be used and recovered as steam in a better manner.
The solution reduces the platform’s annual CO2 emissions by 60,000 tonnes.
In 2013, Sita France produced more than 2 million MWh of heat, enough for about 368,000 people, and over 1.5 million MWh of energy for 620,000 people.
Image: General view of the Robin plant. Photo: Courtesy of Suez Environnement.
