But, it has now emerged that following a start-up of the plant again in February 2008 – after being closed for repairs since last summer – Allington has run into more problems.
The minutes report that Robert Hardy, Kent's director of improvement and engagement, told the committee that waste did not feature highly as an issue within the council's comprehensive performance assessment. But, he added that Audit Commission inspectors who carried out the assessment would be looking at the council's Municipal Waste Strategy and he mentioned that “other authorities were still envious of Kent for making the decision to go ahead with the Allington Incinerator”.
Restart
It emerged this week that following a restart on February 6 2008 after costly repairs to the linings of the plant's three furnaces (see letsrecycle.com story), that one of the furnaces is again non-operational. The plant has a 3-line incineration process with waste heat recovery boilers and flue gas cleaning.
The plant is thought to be still taking in waste on a trial basis to the two remaining furnaces and is also operating its materials recycling facility.
Few details have emerged over exactly why the plant is down although it is understood to be related to a fan which generates the air draft within the furnace. However, the operator, WRG-subisdiary Kent Enviropower is thought not to consider the problem serious.
Kent Enviropower said yesterday that testing and commissioning of the plant is progressing well. It has been operating at 60% of capacity processing around 6,000 tonnes of waste a week.
A spokesperson for Kent Enviropower said: “We are very pleased with the progress that has been made and are looking forward to generating electricity to be exported to the grid from the summer. With Allington fully up and running Kent county cCouncil will have a state of the art EfW facility at its disposal which will make a massive contribution to reducing its reliance on landfill.”
Fluidised bed
Instead of the traditional moving grate process seen in the UK's mass burn incinerators, Allington uses a fluidised bed system. Despite the problems at the plant, Kent Enviropower remains firm in its belief that the technology is fully appropriate for UK residual waste. It has rejected criticism of the choice of fluidised bed technology, which, it points out, is different to earlier industry designs and uses the Lentjes Rowitec form of the process.
The plant, which is still at commissioning stage, is operated by WRG subsidiary Kent Enviropower. Untill full performance is achieved, Kent does not have to rely on the plant and while it was due to open in November 2006 it now looks unlikely to be fully operational until before the autumn. A replacement turbine to generate power has still to be installed this summer.
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