MGT Power Ltd has outlined plans for the development of a second major biomass-fired power plant in the UK just weeks after it gained planning consent for its 295 MW Tees Renewable Energy Plant.
The UK-based power project developer says that it is proposing the construction of a 295 MW biomass plant at the Port of Tyne, near Newcastle in northeast England. The announcement comes just a few weeks after MGT said that its Tees Renewable Energy Plant, which has been billed as one of the largest biomass energy plants ever to be built, had received planning consent from the UK government.
MGT has circulated details of the proposed Tyne project to various government agencies and local organisations, and says that the plant could be operational by 2014. Its Tees project is slated to enter commercial operation in 2012.
“With the government committed to more renewable electricity generation over the next decade, our Tyne biomass project along with our consented scheme at Teesport will make a significant contribution to the government’s targets,” said Chris Moore, Director of MGT Power. “Large scale biomass projects can operate at baseload and each scheme will produce in one year as much green electricity as the largest 1000 MW wind farm project.”
Each biomass project will also save 1.2 million tonnes of CO2 from being emitted every year, says MGT, which will source biomass feedstock for the plants from certified sustainable forestry projects being developed in North and South America and the Baltic states.
The UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has also given consent to a 95 MW waste-to-energy plant in Cheshire, northwest England. The plant will turn 600 000 tonnes per year of waste into electricity and heat, which will be used by a new Resource Recovery Park.
