Northamptonshire county council’s development control committee will meet tomorrow (20 September) to decide whether to approve the Shelton Road plant, which has been proposed by Clean Power Properties Ltd with an aim to produce 16.4MW for the National Grid.
The facility – which aims to treat ‘local waste arisings’ – will include materials recovery and advanced thermal gasification plants to treat an estimated 150,000 tonnes of ‘biomass rich’ refuse-derived fuel (RDF) and around 45,000 tonnes of mixed solid waste per year.
If constructed, the facility would be located within two miles of Drenl’s proposed 120,000 tonnes-per-year gasification plant on Gretton Brook Road, which was awarded planning permission in early 2014. However, the company has yet to begin work on the plant following its application to extend the catchment area for commercial waste materials (see letsrecycle.com story).
The proximity of the two sites has led Corby MP Tom Pursglove, local councillor Robert McKellar and the United Kingdom Without Incineration Network to all question the proposed Shelton Road plant.
Local residents have also argued that the creation of 30 full time jobs is not worth the risk of ‘unproven technology’ – and that the concentration of two similar plants in Corby will see an increase in waste from other counties.
But, council officers have recommended that the county council approve the facility – arguing that waste treatment requirements are forecast to rise to 860,000 and 920,000 tonnes per year in 2021 and 2031 respectively.
By rejecting the site, officers warn this would leave Northamptonshire with a capacity gap of 585,000 tonnes by 2021. Assuming that the projected Shelton Road throughput is counted, this would still result in a shortfall of 470,000 tonnes.
Gasification
Like Drenl, Clean Power Properties’ original plans for waste treatment in Corby also date back to 2014 when the company applied to build a 195,000 tonnes-per-year pyrolysis gasification and anaerobic digestion facility on the site.
This application was approved by the county council in September 2015 – but was called in by the Secretary of State. Before a hearing could be arranged, Clean Power Properties withdrew the application in June this year.
Clean Power Properties, which currently has 12 ‘renewable energy sites’ in the planning and permitting stage across Britain, has now scrapped the food waste treatment element of its plan entirely.
While the capacity of the plant will remain unchanged, the pyrolysis treatment has also been switched for advanced conversion technology – to be supplied by Stafford-based Biomass Power.
In an FAQ on the company’s website, Clean Power Properties assures that its technology partner has ‘three similar facilities operating in the UK, one in Italy, and a further two currently being constructed in the UK’.
This includes Bouygues Energies & Services’ £60 million gasification plant Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, which is due to be completed in 2017 (see letsrecycle.com story).
Biomass Power
“Overall it is considered that there are no policy grounds to object.”
Describing the process in a case study on its website, Biomass Power states the fuel used in a prior 4.5MW gasification project – delivered in 2009 – used ‘a light fraction material with a rich biomass content’ which was ‘produced by removing some of the recyclable material such as metals, aggregates and plastics’.
Advising the council to rubber-stamp the proposals, the officer’s report states that the plant would also be R1 efficient and combined heat and power (CHP) enabled. “Overall it is considered that there are no policy grounds to object to the principle of the proposed waste development at the site”, he added.
Clean Power Properties has announced it would be working towards a deadline of 2020 to deliver the facility. When contacted by letsrecycle.com, a spokesman for the company confirmed that the technology change was a “key reason” its plans had been re-submitted.
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