We are delighted that the county council has granted this consent. We were also very encouraged when Cannock Chase district council recently decided to support the development
David Savoury, Biffa
And, the firm has announced a partnership with Slovenian gasification specialist KIV Renewable Energy, with the intention of also developing gasification capacity to treat waste in the UK.
Staffordshire county council granted Biffa planning permission yesterday (November 16) for the AD plant which will turn food and vegetable waste from households and businesses into 4MW of electricity – enough to power over 8000 homes.
The process of anaerobic digestion breaks down biodegradable material in the absence of oxygen and produces methane rich biogas.
Swiss based energy from waste technology provider Ros Roca Envirotec, part of the Ros Roca Environment Group, will provide the technology. Biffa appointed Ros Roca Envirotec to supply AD technology for a number of large-scale biogas plants throughout the UK in June this year, with the 4MW plant in Cannock being the first project for the partnership (see letsrecycle.com story).
Work will start later this month and the plant is planned to be generating renewable electricity in Autumn 2010.
Director of environment & external affairs at Biffa, David Savory, said: “We are delighted that the county council has granted this consent. We were also very encouraged when Cannock Chase district council recently decided to support the development.
“The two authorities have clearly demonstrated that they recognise the critical importance of this type of infrastructure, both in terms of sustainable waste management and the generation of renewable energy. There is also a vital need for inward investment in the West Midlands that will aid the transformation of the regions economy.”
He added that the Cannock project was part of the development of a network of infrastructure that would enable Biffa to manage waste and maximize the generation of renewable electricity, while reducing reliance on landfill.
Biffa claims that the construction phase will provide employment for almost 100 people – with 15 employed when fully operational – and more than £10 million will go into the local economy.
Gasification
Meanwhile, Biffa has also formed a strategic partnership with KIV Renewable Energy, a Slovenian company which specialises in biomass boilers and gasification technology.
KIV was identified as part of Biffa's world-wide review of waste management technology providers and Biffa's desire to introduce a gasification system into the UK from a company who shared its rigorous process engineering and management principles.
The company has built more than 330 biomass and Waste Incineration Directive (WID) compliant energy-from-waste gasifier systems.
One of the most recently constructed plants is located in Slovenia's third largest city, Celje. The combined plant, operational since November 2008, serves a population of 240,000 and the “heat led” KIV gassifier receives 30,000 tonnes per annum of refuse derived fuel (from the MBT process) and 6,000 tonnes per annum of sewage sludge.
It has a thermal input capacity of 18MWth – producing 15MWth of steam used to generate 2.1MWe of power and the remaining 13MWth converted to hot water for the city's district heating scheme. A similar sized plant configured for power generation would produce 4.2MWe gross.
Biffa and KIV, together with MW Zander; the company's chosen civils and engineering contractor, are now in discussion with a number of local authorities regarding the deployment of this technology and are also considering the development of merchant facilities.
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