BIOGEN Power has received consent for an 80,000 tonne advanced thermal treatment (ATT) facility from planners in Irvine, North Ayrshire. The plant will be the first energy from waste (EfW) plant of its kind in the UK, and construction of the £40 million development is due to begin early next year. Production at the plant is expected to start in 2011.

The amount of waste going to landfill is a huge problem in the UK. In fact the UK is the third worst performer in the EU for waste sent to landfill. By way of comparison, France has a similar population, and around three times the land area, but sends only half as much waste to landfill.

Central government is pushing taxes up each year in a bid to encourage local authorities to find alternative ways of disposing of their waste, and inspire them to meet pan-European landfill targets. The spiralling cost of energy is also becoming a major concern and the UK has been tasked with sourcing 20 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. Advocates of EfW claim this is where the technology can come into its own.

“The consent is the culmination of seven years of work and will set the benchmark for the advanced thermal treatment of waste”, said Christian Reeve, CEO of BioGen Power. “It will help tackle the waste problem head on as well as making a contribution to address the issue of producing renewable energy.”

The Energos technology to be used by BioGen Power works by applying a partial combustion treatment, known as gasification, to non-hazardous domestic and commercial and industrial waste in a controlled environment to produce a synthetic gas. The gas is then oxidized in a special process to generate electricity, heat and steam. The result is that local homes and businesses can benefit from renewable energy with extra electricity generated being sold to the national grid. Emissions from the plant are significantly lower than those permitted under the EU’s Waste Incineration Directive,
making it one of the greenest, cleanest technologies available. A typical BioGen Power EfW plant will dispose of around 120,000 tonnes of waste per year, exporting approximately 9MWe of renewable electricity - allowing up to 15,000 homes to benefit from the process.

Six Energos plants across Norway and Germany have been operating since 1997 and BioGen Power intends to submit a further three planning applications for EfW plants before the end of 2008. Over the next five years the company plans to invest around £600 million building a further 11 EfW plants across Scotland and the rest of the UK.

The Energos technology used by BioGen Power is so successful that in February this year a contract was signed with Hafslund Heat and Infrastructure AS to supply an 80,000 tpa WTE gasification plant at Borregaard Industries Limited, a chemical manufacturer based in Sarpsborg, Norway. The new plant will compliment the existing Ostfold Energi plant which has been supplying steam to Borregaard Industries since 2003 and is testament to the credibility of the technology.

Reeve concluded: “In comparison to the traditional mass burn incinerators that are generally used at the moment, this type of facility has a very small footprint so it can be built in urban areas without looking out of place. The result of this is that the problem of waste treatment can be addressed at a local level, close to the waste source, rather than spending huge amounts of the tax payer’s money transporting waste around the country to landfill sites - an activity, in itself, that creates more traffic congestion and produces even more greenhouse gases.”