Metlen Hits First Fire Milestone at Protos Waste-to-Energy Plant

Metlen Energy & Metals (LON: MTLN) has announced that its Protos Energy Recovery Facility (ERF) in Cheshire has achieved “first fire” on waste, a critical milestone confirming the plant has entered the final stages of hot commissioning.

The facility is being developed for waste management group Encyclis, with Metlen acting as strategic turnkey partner alongside Standardkessel Baumgarte GmbH.

Once fully operational, Protos ERF will process 500,000 tonnes of non-recyclable waste annually, generating up to 49.9MW of baseload electricity — enough to power roughly 90,000 homes. The plant supports the circular economy by recovering energy from residual household and commercial waste, converting bottom ash into secondary aggregates for construction, and extracting ferrous and non-ferrous metals for reuse.

Protos marks Metlen’s first Waste-to-Energy project and has involved considerable technical complexity, alongside cost and schedule pressures the company says it has previously addressed.

Management framed the milestone as validation of bringing its former M Renewables and M Power Projects divisions together under the new M RESET platform, positioning Metlen as one of few contractors able to deliver complex thermal power projects amid inflation and supply-chain strain across European infrastructure. The company reiterated its “on time and on budget” approach for future thermal projects.

Metlen highlighted a decade-long UK presence, with over 90 completed or ongoing projects spanning solar, battery storage, grid works, gas-fired peaking plants, a synchronous condenser facility, and HVDC converter stations at the EGL1 project.

MTLN shares are trading around 48.9 euros, up roughly 1.4% on the day and near the top of a strong recent run — up about 14% over the past month and nearly 28% over the past three months, having climbed from lows near 33 euros in April to an intraday high of 55 euros earlier this month.