Plans for £150m UK Bio-Resources-to-Fuel Facility Approved
(Bioenergy Insight) Plans to build the UK’s first commercial-scale Bio-Substitute Natural Gas (BioSNG) plant have been approved by the council. Cheshire West & Chester Council’s planning committee gave the green light to the £150 million (€174.2 million) project at Peel Environmental’s Protos site in Ellesmere Port, which will generate renewable gas from up to 175,000 tonnes of bio-resources, such as unrecyclable wood and refuse-derived fuel (RDF).
The plant is being developed by independent UK clean energy company Progressive Energy and will generate enough fuel to power up to 1,000 low-carbon heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) and buses every year. It is hoped the project will create around 300 jobs at the Protos site during construction, with 35 full-time permanent, high-skilled jobs.
Protos sits within the Energy Innovation District (EID), which brings together energy users, network owners, innovators and partners working alongside Cheshire & Warrington LEP, Cheshire West and Chester Council and the University of Chester. The EID is developing a £300 million (€348.5 million) project to create a smart local energy system to boost energy cost savings and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
As well as being used as a transport fuel, BioSNG can be a replacement for natural gas that is currently supplied to homes and businesses. It can be injected into the existing gas network, providing the opportunity for the plant at Protos to export fuel to the wider UK. READ MORE