Wood-waste burning biomass plant approved in Kent
12 August 2011
German biomass energy giant STEAG New Energies has been awarded planning permission to build its first biomass plant in the UK.
Kent county council has granted permission for the company’s UK subsidiary, STEAG New Energies UK, to build a Combined Heat and Power Plant (CHP) at Ridham Dock in Kent which will burn approximately 160,000 tonnes of waste wood a year.
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- Artist's impression of the STEAG biomass plant at Ridham Dock
The Waste Incineration Directive-compliant facility will produce 25MW of power and up to 8-10MW of heat. The waste wood is expected to come from municipal waste (15-20%), commerce and industry (25-30%) and construction and demolition (40-60%).
STEAG says that the wood will be ‘regionally sourced’, claiming that 100,000 tonnes-a-year of waste wood is produced in Kent alone and that finding end markets for this material is an ‘issue’ in South East England. At present, the UK’s largest waste-wood burning biomass plants are located much further north, on Teesside (Wilton 10) and in Lockerbie, Scotland (an E.ON facility).
The heat and power produced at the Ridham Dock facility will be used to power the CHP plant and adjacent energy-intensive industries, with the remainder transferred to the National Grid.
A planning application was submitted to the council in July 2010 on behalf of STEAG by environmental consultancy SLR Consulting, based near Oxford and was approved on June 14 2011.
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Tim Evans, a member of STEAG’s New Energies UK Group, which has its headquarters in Richmond in London, said: “We are naturally very pleased to have secured planning permission for our plant in Ridham Dock in Kent.”
SLR
SLR carried out technical assessments including geotechnical site investigation, transport, noise and vibration, flood risk, ecological, air quality and human health impact assessments.
SLR senior planner, Joanna Freyther, said: “It is fantastic that planning permission has been granted. The new plant will save around 540,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions a year by diverting the non-recyclable waste wood away from landfill.”
STEAG New Energies GmbH, based in Saarbruecken, is one of three major players in the biomass energy market in Germany. The company changed its name to Evonik STEAG in 2007, but following the acquisition of a majority shareholding by Stadtwerke-Konsortium Rhein-Ruhr, the company reverted to its original name on June 8 2011. Now, Stadtwerke-Konsortium Rhein-Ruhr owns a 51% stake in the company, while Evonik Industries holds 49%.
The Ridham Dock plant will include two moving grate boilers, two flue gas cleaning systems and a single stack.
Subject to gaining an environmental permit in the near future, construction on the Ridham facility is expected to start next year, with commissioning in 2014. This will create 26 permanent jobs.
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STEAG is also considering building other plants in the UK.
A spokeswoman for STEAG said: “Ridham Dock would be STEAG New Energies’ first plant in the UK. As Great Britain aims to reach its targets regarding sustainable energy generation, Great Britain is an interesting market for our services and STEAG New Energies will consider further project opportunities”.
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