U.K. Biomass Project Green-lit for Immingham

---

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) -- Full planning consent has been granted to Real Ventures Limited (Immingham, England) for the construction of a €159 million ($209 million) biomass plant at the Port of Immingham in northeast England.

After less than year in the planning process, the project received the green light from North East Lincolnshire Council. The plant will have a generation capacity of 49-megawatts (MW) and will produce enough electricity to power approximately 90,000 homes. The Immingham project is one of two biomass projects revealed by Real Ventures last June. The company is also planning a similar sized project for the Isle of Wight. For additional information, see related June 20, 2011, article - Real Ventures Unveils Two U.K. Biomass Projects.

The company said it is also aiming to lodge a planning application for another biomass plant at the Port of Hull in the coming months.

The Immingham plant will be located on a three-hectare brownfield site at the port, where a fertiliser bagging facility will overhauled later in 2012 by port owner, Associated British Ports (ABP). The Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant will use virgin wood biomass fuel, which will be imported directly to the plant's near-dockside location by ship. It will require imports of up to 250,000 tonnes of wood fuel in pellet form from Europe as, according to Real Ventures, the U.K. cannot produce enough. Construction will kick off this year with commissioning expected in 2015.

"We are very pleased to be able to announce our first planning approval from an exciting portfolio of renewable energy projects," said Ray Tucker, chief executive officer of Real Ventures. "We are now proceeding to secure funding for the final design and construction work for the Immingham project."

The U.K. lost one of its leading planned biomass plants in February when energy company Drax Group plc (LSE:DRX) (Selby, England) pulled the plug on a 299 MW dedicated biomass plant in Selby, North Yorkshire, on the site of the massive 4,000 MW Drax coal-fired plant, the largest in the U.K. Planning permission for the Ouse Renewable Energy Plant was granted to Drax Biomass Ltd. by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) in September 2011 but Drax blamed lack of government support for its decision to cancel the project. For additional information, see February 24, 2012, article - Drax Scraps U.K. Biomass Project.

View Project Report - 300042821 200005048

Industrial Info Resources (IIR), with global headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas, and eight offices outside of North America, is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy markets. Industrial Info's quality-assurance philosophy, the Living Forward Reporting Principle™, provides up-to-the-minute intelligence on what's happening now, while constantly keeping track of future opportunities.