From feasibility to commissioning — one engineering team across the project lifecycle 
 

Seven mandates

RCA Engineering is engaged on defined scopes with defined deliverables. Each mandate below can be taken alone or in sequence; none of them involves supplying, licensing or recommending a vendor RCA is paid by.

01 Technical due diligence

Independent review of recycling, waste-to-energy and gasification assets for investors, lenders and acquirers. Technology maturity and reference plants, mass and energy balance, throughput and availability assumptions, permitting envelope, residue streams, and a risk register with the items that actually move the case.

02 Process engineering

Process design and sizing to plant engineering standards: block and process flow diagrams, mass and energy balance, equipment duty specification, utilities and effluent definition, and the technical documentation a contractor can price without ambiguity.

03 Financial modelling

Unlevered and levered free cash flow, NPV at project WACC, project and equity IRR, minimum DSCR with ADSCR and LLCR, debt sculpted to target, and tornado sensitivities on gate fee, CAPEX, ramp-up and recovered-product price. Built so a lender can audit the assumptions, not just the output.

04 Procurement & contracts

RFQ scope drafting, technical bid evaluation and levelling, and EPC contract review: FIDIC Silver and Yellow Book allocation, liquidated damages, performance guarantees, taking-over and defect-notification provisions, retention monies and parent company guarantees.

05 Decommissioning

Arisings curve and volume forecast, dismantling sequence, cutting and handling method, transport and storage envelope, and treatment routing for composite structures. Onshore and offshore, with the interface between site works and downstream treatment defined rather than assumed.

06 Waste-to-energy & gasification

Feasibility and lender-facing review of thermal valorisation projects: feedstock specification and variability, calorific and ash envelope, output offtake, and the operating assumptions that determine whether the plant meets its guarantee at the feed it will actually receive.

07 Commissioning & start-up

Pre-commissioning and start-up oversight, performance testing against contractual guarantee, punch list and taking-over certificates, defect-notification period management, and KPI optimisation through ramp-up.

Method

Five routes, assessed on the same basis

RCA Engineering does not arrive with a preferred technology. Every route is evaluated against the same criteria, and the answer changes with the stream.

Mech Mechanical

Recovery of aggregate and short fibre. Assessed on bulk density, contamination tolerance, energy per tonne and the realisable value of the resulting filler.

Pyro Pyrolysis

Fibre recovery with energy recovery from the polymer fraction. Assessed on retained fibre properties, sizing loss, char handling and off-gas treatment.

Solv Solvolysis

Chemical depolymerisation. Assessed on solvent inventory, resin-system specificity, effluent treatment and reagent cost per tonne.

Gasif Gasification

Thermal conversion to syngas. Assessed on ash and inert loading, tar management, gas conditioning and the value of the energy output.

Hyb Hybrid

Sequenced routes for mixed streams. Assessed on interface losses between stages and the cost of the pre-treatment each stage requires.

The determinant is rarely the reactor. It is the feedstock envelope: what actually arrives at the gate, at what contamination level, and whether the recovery rate holds at that input rather than at the clean offcut it was demonstrated on.