Initially the agreement will involve the contract for the supply of 240,000 tonnes a year of RDF for energy recovery in the UK rather than in northern Europe, has been awarded to Dutch firm N+P. The material will be for CoGen’s Hooton plant with construction starting later this year.
But, in the longer terms the UK division of N&P is set to be involved in the supply of RDF to all of CoGen’s gasification plants.
The contract award to supply RDF – refuse derived fuel – covers the plant a Hooton. RDF will be burnt in the proposed and already permitted £135 million 26.5MWe gasification plant to be built on an industrial site at Hooton Park, Cheshire close to Merseyside.
In line with the agreement with CoGen, N+P Group has now opened a UK office in Melton Mowbray. Former Cemex technical expert and consultant at Alsthorpe Associates, Neville Roberts has been appointed as managing director of the UK business, N&P Alternative Fuels Ltd.
Continent
Until now N&P Group has been a major purchaser of RDF for use on the European continent. While material will still be exported, relationships with existing producers of RDF will be developed for the supply of the material for use in the UK. At present N&P processes and supplies more than 2 million tonnes of waste per annum with about 30 to 35% of this volume supplied from the UK.
CoGen said it aims to develop “advanced gasification plants” in the UK and added that the 240,000 tonnes 15-year long contract award meant that it was a “step nearer” construction of the Hooton plant. The RDF is expected to come from the Merseyside and North Cheshire area: CoGen says “Projects are selected to minimise the transportation of waste within the UK”.
CoGen noted that its Hooton site is “fully permitted for an Energy from Waste plant, has secured a grid access agreement and will utilise fluidised bed advanced gasification technology.
“Construction on the project will commence later this year and once operational in 2020 it will provide enough energy to the grid to power 50,000 homes for the next 20 years.”
‘Excited’
Chief executive of CoGen, Ian Brooking, said: “We are delighted to be partnering with the N+P Group on Hooton and are excited to be working with them going forward to deliver multiple similar projects.”
Karel Jennissen CEO of N+P Group BV commented “We look forward to a strong working relationship with CoGen and we are even further enthused regarding expanding this relationship further in many other locations”.
Pellets
UK manager Neville Roberts explained that the UK business of N+P will also make its own high grade SRF and convert this into pellets on Teesside. “We do this in Holland and we have sold out.”
Mr Roberts explained: “We will piggy-back on the CoGen plants to make use of the heat for making SRF. Within a region, low grade waste would go to Cogen and commercial and industrial would go to us.”
- CoGen also has a 21.5 MW biomass facility which is due to be commissioned later this year and is at the heart of Peel Environmental’s £700m Protos development near Ellesmere Port, Cheshire.
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