The company, which has its headquarters in Monmouth, Wales, submitted a planning application for the seven acre Sheepbridge Resource Park, near Chesterfield, to Derbyshire county council on July 21. This includes proposals for a 60,000 tonne capacity gasification plant producing combined heat and power (CHP) and a 20,000 tonne materials recycling facility (MRF) – both operating on a merchant basis.
Speaking to letsrecycle.com today (August 29), Cyclamax managing director Tony Watkins explained that the forthcoming proposals would include larger developments, with the potential to explore new technology options.
“We plan to submit one application in October and one in November, they'll be for 15 acre sites, in bigger urban and metropolitan areas, with a minimum of 125,000 to 135,000 throughput,” he said.
“Both new sites will be exciting because we'll be pioneering technology to take waste into the hydrogen economy.”
He added: “At least two of those proposed for 2009 will be the same scale as Sheepbridge, and at least one of four is likely to be even bigger because we're looking to build it in the London area.”
And, he said that the size of the proposed developments would be driven by the same principles that characterised the current Sheepbridge plans – explaining that “each facility is designed with local sustainability in mind”.
Sheepbridge
As well as the CHP gasification plant and MRF at Sheepbridge – which would represent phase one of the project – Cyclamax also plans to develop a 'Sustainable Employment Park', when phase one is complete.
The park, which would provide roughly 60,000 square feet of industrial space, would have all of its electricity and heat needs met by the adjacent CHP plant, with surplus electricity sold onto the local grid to provide power for needs of up to 16,000 households in Chesterfield.
Mr Watkins explained that the various parts of the Resource Park would aim to complement each other, as well as boosting the prospects for local SMEs (small to medium-sized enterprises) – based both in the employment park and elsewhere.
“The recycling plant ensures we're able to meet the principles of the waste hierarchy – the MRF helps commercial companies and especially SMEs, it allows us to recover valuable waste from this stream,” he said.
“Part of the electricity will be kept on site to power the employment park; it provides benefits for businesses to promote themselves as sustainable. The heat captured will be used for the employment space,” he added.
Businesses
And, he explained that a particular effort would be made to attract businesses to the park that might be able to feed off the outputs of the gasification plant or MRF.
“We'll be targeting businesses that might use by-products produced on the park, for example, people interested with providing biomass for biomass boilers, also from people struggling to gain facilities for textile recycling – needing bulking areas,” he said.
Mr Watkins also revealed that discussions had already been held with a local electricity supplier to provide a market for the surplus power not needed by the park, and that “they do have a capacity and a need for it”.
Further highlighting the local aspect of the plans, he explained that “we've set up Sheepbridge Resource Park Limited – all management, staff and purchasing decisions will be made locally,” and added that waste for the plant would only be transported from within a 30 mile radius.
Assuming planning permission is granted Cyclamax hopes to complete phase one of the Sheepbridge project by Christmas 2010, and aims to submit a planning application for the Employment Park that would allow it take the first tenant in summer 2011.
Variations
And, Mr Watkins said that, while its other planned Resource Parks would all feature a residual waste processing facility, a MRF and some form of industrial space, there was potential for variations to the detail of the model.
In particular, he suggested that Cyclamax could decide to eschew the third-party employment park route and instead set up businesses itself to exploit the benefits of the outputs produced by the other parts of the park, for example a hydrogen fuel cell operation.
Subscribe for free