UK's first major wood-burning power station opens

London - The Sembcorp Biomass Power Station, which is claimed to be the UK’s first large scale wood burning power station, has officially opened at the Wilton International manufacturing site on Teesside. The £60-million station is designed to use 300 kilotonnes of "sustainable" wood a year to generate 30 MW of electricity, said owner Sembcorp Utilities UK.

According to the company, the renewable energy initiative saves around 200,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year compared with a conventional power station, while generating enough power for 30,000 households. Wood for the station comes from recycled wood, which is received, stored and chipped at the £8-million UK Wood Recycling site at Wilton, chipped offcuts from sawmills, managed forests as well as specially grown willow crop known as short rotation coppice.

All the chipped wood is mixed in careful proportions before being fed into the boiler, which encompasses technology already in use in Scandinavia and other areas. The electricity is being sold to E.ON – the UK’s largest integrated energy company, generating and distributing electricity and retailing electricity and gas.

"The Sembcorp Biomass Power Station is a real success story - providing carbon-neutral power to the homes of thousands, using fuel from local sources. I salute the efforts of Sembcorp’s workers and management today," said UK Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks at the 12 Nov opening.

Sembcorp Utilities claims to be one of the largest privately-owned industrial utilities and services businesses in the UK. It provides steam, electricity and other utilities to the major manufacturers at the near 2,000 acre Wilton International site in the Tees Valley including Dow, Artenius UK, Croda, SABIC, INVISTA and Huntsman.

The company is owned by Sembcorp Industries Ltd, a Singapore-based leading utilities and marine group that provides centralised utilities and energy to industrial customers mainly in Asia and the Middle East. Sembcorp has total assets of over S$8.5 billion and employs more than 7,500 worldwide, including around 650 in the UK.