The £160 million waste wood biomass plant was mothballed in April 2019 when its main contractors Babcock & Wilcox Volund reached a settlement with Glenmont to exit the site.
Initially due to come online in 2018, the site was hit by a series of delays which meant Glennmont missed out on the government’s Renewables Obligation Certificates subsidy scheme, given to waste wood biomass plants to create renewable electricity.
Glennmont recently applied to switch the permit of the plant to allow the processing of refuse derived fuel (see letsrecycle.com story). The Agency’s consultation on the plans will run until 29 March, before a decision is due later in the year.
Now however, the plant has been sold, in a move which Glennmont said “justifies” its confidence in the plant.
‘Delighted’
A spokesperson from Glennmont Partners said: “We are delighted to confirm that we have sold Port Clarence Energy Limited to Womble Energy Limited, an affiliate of CoGen Limited. Both parties are very happy with the outcome that justifies our confidence in Port Clarence Energy, and we look forward to seeing the plant progress towards commercial operation under Womble Energy’s management.”
Construction on the site originally began in 2015 and the original funding for the project came from Glenmont Partners with debt arranged and provided by Deutsche Bank and Danske Bank, supported by EKF, the export credit agency of Denmark.
Around 40 people were employed on the site (see letsrecycle.com story). This rose to around 300 during peak construction. Biomass fuel company Stobart Energy won a contract to supply the plant with 250,000 tonnes of waste wood in 2015 (see letsrecycle.com story).
CoGen
CoGen describes itself as “end-to-end developer of technically advanced energy recovery facilities in the UK”.
It owns sites such as the Ince bipower facility, Welland biopower and Hooton.
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