The 20.2MWe and 7.8MWth facility is being developed within the 180-acre Mersey Multimodal Gateway project – a logistics hub to the west of Liverpool – by Danish firm Burmeister & Wain Scandinavian Contractor (BWSC) and logistics company Stobart Group.
Described as the largest waste wood renewable energy plant in the region, the plant will be operated by BWSC under a 20-year operation and maintenance contract.
The combined heat and power (CHP) facility will be powered by burning grade B and C recovered wood sourced by Stobart Biomass Products Ltd under a 16-year fuel supply contract with the UK firm.
In an update on the project this month, Stobart revealed that around 500 tonnes of waste wood is to be supplied for the initial testing period, which is slated to begin in mid-October in advance of commissioning in December 2016. Commercial operations will then begin at the site in early 2017, Stobart has also revealed.
Dryer
Latest work on the facility has included the installation of a belt-dryer, which will take the heat from the biomass plant with a forward temperature of 85°C and a return temperature of 35°C.
Stobart has also begun work on a wood processing facility located at a site nearby, which will process waste wood for delivery to the boiler.
The processing facility is being built on the former site of a warehouse operated by plastics manufacturer Rehau. This will be the main site for sorting and chipping waste wood to feed the CHP plant.
BWSC is involved in a number of other UK biomass projects including a 14.3 MW facility in Port Talbot, which opened in 2008 and is operated by Western Wood. BWSC also operates and maintains the straw-fired Sleaford Renewable Energy Plant in Lincolnshire as well as backing a major waste wood-fired biomass plant at Lisahally in Northern Ireland.
GIB
Funding for the facility has come from the Green Investment Bank, as well as investment partners Investec Bank and Eksport Kredit Fonden (see letsrecycle.com story).
Supplying the Widnes facility will bring Stobart closer to its goal of supplying two million tonnes of biomass fuel to the market by 2018.
The company has signed a number of supply contracts with biomass plants across the UK – including Brite Partnership’s 40MW facility in Rotherham, the ECO2 biomass plants in both Margam, South Wales, and Port Clarence in Teesside.
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