Thermal consent

A waste treatment facility based on Energos's thermal conversion process has received UK planning consent to be built at Kirk Sandall, Doncaster.

The £75m partnership tie-up with Biogen Power will provide a community-sized facility to handle Doncaster’s local waste, diverting it from landfill.

It has the capacity to treat 120,000 tonnes per year of non-recyclable household and commercial waste, converting it into enough electricity to power 18,000 homes, as well as producing heat and steam for neighbouring businesses.

Over the past three years, six planning applications based on the Energos gasification technology have been submitted and all six have received consent within 10 months of the application date.

Nick Dawber, managing director of Energos, said: 'Our model is to create small plants that can exist at the heart of a community and handle local leftover waste that the community cannot recycle.'

Christian Reeve, BioGen Power’s chief executive officer, added that construction of the plant will take two years. It will start in in late 2010, creating up to 200 jobs, many of which will be locally sourced. Once operational, the facility will provide some 30 green-collar jobs, with a similar number being created in third-party support services.

A typical Energos plant generates 8MW of  electricity using an advanced two-stage thermal treatment process that converts residual, non-recyclable waste into syngas that is then fully combusted.