Thermal treatment

Energos plans to invest £40m in a renewable-energy facility at Knowsley Business Park in Merseyside that would convert leftover, non-recyclable waste into electricity for up to 10,000 homes, as well as creating heat for local industry.

A planning application has been made to Knowsley Borough Council by the company, which is part of the north-west based renewable-energy company Ener-G.

The proposed scheme would use a thermal-treatment technique called gasification, which produces gas from waste before combusting it to generate heat, producing steam and electricity.

Nick Dawber, managing director for Energos, said: 'The scheme would create a similar renewable-power output to 18 large wind-turbines.

'No more than 40 lorries would visit the site each day and they would have direct access from the East Lancashire Road or M57.

'In addition, the facility would be barely visible from residential communities.'

The plant will reduce the number of vehicles leaving the Merseyside area to take waste to landfills, reducing current transport CO₂ emissions by at least 1,200 tonnes per year.

It will receive leftover, non-recyclable commercial and possibly leftover non-recyclable household waste.

The plant will take two years to build and will be the second advanced thermal conversion-plant built in the UK, with Energos set to open the first this November on the Isle of Wight, a project backed by the government’s New Technology Demonstrator Programme.

Energos said that the dry flue gas cleaning system used in the plant means that the stack plume would not be visible under normal atmospheric conditions and the advanced gasification process would ensure ultra low emissions - significantly lower than the stringent safe limits required by the EU Emissions Standard.

In addition, waste delivered to the site would be continuously regulated by the Environment Agency under an environmental permit.

A detailed environmental-impact assessment of the proposed project has been undertaken.

This examined factors such as air quality, traffic, noise, visual impact and ecology and found that the facility would have no significant negative effects on the environment.

Energos will build a similar plant in Irvine, Scotland, where planning permission was recently granted without any objections from the local community.

The company has a ten-year track record, with six Energos plants operating in Norway and Germany, where they complement recycling initiatives.