Wood-burning may bring reprieve for Tilbury Power Station
Wood-burning may bring reprieve for Tilbury Power Station
Tilbury Power Station on the banks of the Thames may no longer have to close after RWE npower approved a plan to convert it into the world’s largest biomass plant.
RWE hopes to have completed the conversion by the end of the year.
By Rowena Mason 9:00PM BST 23 Apr 2011
RWE believes it will be just as cheap for the plant to burn wood pellets as coal, as there are Government subsidies for renewables and a raft of taxes on fossil-fuel plants.
This potentially paves the way for more of Britain’s coal-fired power stations to convert their furnaces to burn wood pellets or other biomass material. A third of the UK’s power stations are due to close by 2015 under European laws, including the 1,000 megawatt station at Tilbury.
While burning biomass does not automatically save Tilbury from scheduled closure, RWE is expected to apply to Europe for an exemption if this year’s trials at the station are successful.
Converting more older coal stations to biomass could help to solve a headache for the Government, which is facing the prospect of an energy gap after 2015 when the coal stations shut but no new nuclear plants and few wind farms are yet on stream.
Burning biomass on such a scale has never been attempted before. The majority of fuel will be transported from RWE’s wood pellet plant in Georgia in the US.
22 Apr 2011
Dan Meredith, a spokesman for RWE, said the German company believes biomass can be just as profitable, if not more so, than coal.
The plant will be eligible for subsidies from the Government under the Renewables Obligation scheme. Biomass was included in possible technologies for subsidies under the scheme last July.
The plant will also continue to receive free permits under the European Union emissions trading scheme until 2012, with surplus credits sold on the international markets.
RWE hopes to have completed the conversion by the end of the year. Another option for the site would be for the company to close the Tilbury plant and build a gas station there instead.
Credit: The Sunday Telegraph 24 April 2011
Comment from The Biomass Blog:
This excellent article shows that current concerns over nuclear power and shortcomings from relying on wind power to make up the shortfall in our required energy contribution from renewables can be overcome by progressive firms such as RWE Npower.
Any criticism about the destruction of forests to provide the necessary feedstock is disingenuous as the feedstock for Tilbury will come from from RWE’s own pellet mills in Atlanta, Georgia. These are from sustainable forestry and or waste sources.
The expected increase in demand for wood pellets for other mega wood pellet burning power stations will be more than satisfied by imports for example from Canadian forests which have been decimated by infestation from Mountain Pine Beetle. Trees from these forests are fit for no other purpose and could more than provide the necessary additional 5 – 7m tons of wood pellets per annum which are forecast to be burned annually by 2015. Further, the UK currently, it is estimated, disposes of and or wastes as much as 16m tons of timber from building and other industrial manufacturing which has been going to landfill. Simple recovery of such valuable resources is possible and must be addressed, as energy generation from biomass becomes a natural and preferred alternative to paying expensive gate fees to tip wood!
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Comment from Jake
Time May 9, 2012 at 6:47 pm
biomass boilers is for sure the way to go as the wood pellets seem to be getting cheaper to buy and the government are offering many schemes to encourage wood burning.