The North Blyth Biomass Project was a proposed biomass-fired

power station A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the electricity generation, generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electr ...

planned to be located at

North Blyth, Northumberland North Blyth is a small settlement in south-east Northumberland, England. It is located to the south east of the village of Cambois and to the north of the town of Blyth on the north eastern side of the River Blyth harbour. It comprises three ...

on the north bank of the River Blyth near its

tidal estuary An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...

. When commissioned it would have had a generating capacity of 100

megawatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...

s, enough electricity to provide for 170,000 homes.

Renewable Energy Systems The RES Group (Renewable Energy Systems) is the world's largest independent renewable energy company, having been in the sector for more than 40 years. , the company had established more than 23 gigawatts of renewable energy projects wor ...

, the station's developer, was granted government consent on 24 July 2013 to build the £250m project. Although the Secretary of State granted a Development Consent Order as a

nationally significant infrastructure project In England and Wales, a nationally significant infrastructure project (NSIP) is a major infrastructure development that bypasses Planning permission in the United Kingdom, normal local planning requirements. These include proposals for power pla ...

, the project was cancelled on 6 March 2014.

Development

In September 2008, the Port of Blyth authority announced that it was planning to build a

biomass Biomass is a term used in several contexts: in the context of ecology it means living organisms, and in the context of bioenergy it means matter from recently living (but now dead) organisms. In the latter context, there are variations in how ...

power station on the redundant Bates Colliery site to the north of Blyth. In May 2009, Port of Blyth selected renewable energy company

(RES) as the developer for the power station. In December 2009, RES and the Port of Blyth decided to relocate the proposed station site to the north bank of the estuary at North Blyth near the port's new bulk materials handling facility. The reason given for the move was that it would reduce the number of road movements supplying the station, and would give the station access to rail facilities. Battleship Wharf - geograph

On 10 and 11 September 2010, RES released the first promotional images of what the station may look like, revealing them to the public in a series of public exhibitions at Blyth Community Enterprise Centre, the North Blyth Club and Cambois Welfare Institute. Later that month, RES claimed that 75% of the local residents who had attended the exhibitions had been enthusiastic about the station being built. Only 5% had opposed the scheme and 20% had no opinion. The strong support for the station was attributed to the creation of local employment at the station, the regeneration of the area and the contribution to the renewable energy drive in the area. David Maunder of RES said the company were ''"delighted with the positive response"''. RES chose to build the station in Blyth because of the good workforce in the area and the town's good infrastructure. If built, the station would have contributed to Blyth becoming a centre for renewable energy, with the nearby NaREC. Between 200 and 300 full-time jobs were expected to be created at the peak of the construction of the station, and 40 permanent jobs would have been created once it was operational. It was claimed 95% of these jobs would go to local people. Planning permission for the station was expected to be submitted to the

Infrastructure Planning Commission The Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) was a non-departmental public body responsible for the examining and, in certain circumstances, the decision-making body for proposed nationally significant infrastructure projects in England and Wales. C ...

some time between January and March 2011, but that March the date was moved back to that summer. The build time for the station was expected to be around 30 months..

Proposed specification

Once fully operational, the station would have generated 100

s (MW) of electricity. This would equate to over 750 million

kilowatt hour A kilowatt-hour ( unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a non-SI unit of energy equal to 3.6 megajoules (MJ) in SI units, which is the energy delivered by one kilowatt of power for one hour. Kilowatt-hours are a commo ...

s (kWh) of electricity a year, enough to power 170,000 average British homes. through burning a mixture of biomass fuels. In a year the station would burn between 500,000 and 900,000 tonnes of

woodchips Woodchips are small- to medium-sized pieces of wood formed by cutting or chipping larger pieces of wood such as trees, branches, logging residues, Tree stump, stumps, roots, and wood waste. Woodchips may be used as a biomass solid fuel and are r ...

wood pellet Pellet fuels (or pellets) are a type of solid fuel made from compressed organic material. Pellets can be made from any one of five general categories of biomass: industrial waste and co-products, food waste, agricultural residues, energy crops, an ...

wood briquette Wood briquettes are a fuel source made out of dried, compacted wood. They are made from wood waste or byproducts and machine-compressed into a log or block shape, generally without added ingredients, though they can have added materials like peat, ...

s and recycled chipped wood. This fuel would be delivered to the station via the nearby port. The electricity generated would have been enough to cut

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalent bond, covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in a gas state at room temperature and at norma ...

emissions by over 300,000 tonnes per year.

Cancellation

The cancellation of the project was announced on 6 March 2014 and RES withdrew.

References

External links

RES North Blyth Biomass Project
{{North East Power Stations Bioenergy in the United Kingdom Power stations in North East England Buildings and structures in Northumberland Proposed biofuel power stations Proposed renewable energy power stations in England Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (United Kingdom)