Cleaner power in Essex

RWE npower hopes to build a 1600megawatt (MW) state-of-the-art cleaner coal power station to replace its existing coal-fired station in Tilbury, Essex.

The new power station would cost over £1bn to build and would be operational by 2013. It will be designed to accommodate ‘carbon capture and storage’ technology.

In an environmental ‘scoping document’ submitted to the Department of Trade and Industry today, RWE npower detailed proposals which would see the existing station replaced with two 800MW high efficiency supercritical coal-fired units.

The scoping study is a preliminary step preceding an application, under Section 36 of the Electricity Act, for consent to build the station.

The new station would have the capacity to reduce carbon emissions by 22 per cent per unit of electricity generated, which would result in a CO2 reduction of almost two million tonnes a year compared to existing coal fired plant in the UK.

The new station will also be developed to include facilities for burning carbon neutral sustainable organic fuels known as ‘biomass’.