Plans have been announced for a construction project that will result in the world’s largest biomass plant in the United Kingdom. The Tees Renewable Energy Plant (REP) will be located in the Port of Teesside, Middlesbrough and it will have a capacity of 299 MW. The plant will produce enough renewable energy for its own operations while supplying power to commercial and residential utility customers in the area by burning wood pellets largely sourced from American forests.
The project’s engineering and construction is expected to cost more than €600 million ($661.11 million) and create around 1,100 jobs during the construction phase. Abengoa, an environmental technology firm based in Spain, along with Toshiba, will lead the project for the client, MGT Teesside, a subsidiary of the British utility MGT Power. A biomass power plant of this type is referred to as a combined heat and power or CHP plant.
“Proposed design of Tees Renewable Energy Plant”
Similar to other biomass power plants in the UK, the Tees REP will burn wood pellets and chips sourced from forest lands in the United States and Europe. The renewable energy generated is anticipated to be equivalent to the power consumed by 600,000 households in the UK. MGT’s website says the plant will help meet the UK’s nationwide renewable energy goal of 15 percent of all energy consumed by 2020 by accounting for around 1 percent of the target. Further, the company projects that the plant will save approximately 1.2 million tonnes of CO2 each year.
MGT reports the project is expected to break ground as soon as funding is secured, hopefully by early 2016, and the plant will be operational by 2019 – just in time to help offset coal and gas usage and contribute to the UK’s 2020 energy goals.
Article cover photo:
“Lumber”
via inhabitat
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