Energy minster visits renewable power plant in Birmingham

In the UK, Matthew Hancock MP, Minister of State for Business and Enterprise and Minister of State for Energy, has visited MWH Treatment's biopower plant in Tyseley, Birmingham to mark one year since the project's groundbreaking.

The plant is the first of its kind in the UK and it will be supplied with approximately 67,000 tonnes of wood waste secured under a long-term sustainable contract with a local supplier. It is forecast to save around 107,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions per annum and produce enough electricity to supply the equivalent of more than 17,000 homes a year.

The project has created over 100 construction and 19 full time jobs in the process. It is scheduled to be fully operational in early 2016. MWH Treatment had secured the contract from Birmingham Bio-Power to design, build, operate and maintain a 10.3MW biomass gasification facility worth £47.8 million (€63.5 million) a year ago.

The investment consortium financing the power plant comprises the Green Investment Bank, Gravis Capital Partners, Balfour Beatty, Eternity Capital Management and Foresight Group's UK Waste Resources and Energy Investments (UKWREI) fund.
Hancock says: 'This investment by the Green Investment Bank will be used to fund biopower projects that will put the UK at the forefront of this innovative green technology, turning local waste wood to electricity. This plant in Birmingham will be the first of its kind in the UK. It uses a new type of gasification system and will not only power 17,000 homes and recycle waste more efficiently.'