Engineering consultant Parsons Brinckerhoff says it is working with Watt Power Ltd in taking two new 299 MWe open cycle gas turbine peaking plants through the UK’s infrastructure planning process. The projects have recently been accepted for examination by the UK Planning Inspectorate. It is likely that this examination process will take up to nine months, after which the stations will require approval from the Secretary of State for Energy & Climate Change before what is known as development consent order (DCO) can be issued. Operation for the two £200 m plants is targetted for 2018/19.
.Located in Hirwaun in South Wales and Eye in Suffolk, the plants, say the developers will be "designed to respond quickly and efficiently to short-term variations in demand and intermittent output from renewables such as onshore and offshore wind."
For both projects, a multi-disciplinary team from Parsons Brinckerhoff provided the preliminary designs for the power plant, gas connections, and electrical connections, and produced the environmental statement and supporting documents for the development consent order.
Watt Power was established in 2011 by power plant developer Stag Energy to focus on peaking plant projects. In January 2014, Noble Group Ltd (international infrastructure, logistics and trading company with headquarters in Hong Kong) acquired a majority shareholding in the company, which Stag continues to operate under a management services agreement. Stag Energy has been involved in the development of over 10 GW of power generation projects, including the Rocksavage, Coryton and Spalding gas-fired plants. It also led the Gateway gas storage project, which was consented in 2008.
