NEW REVIEW The Quarterly Newsletter for the UK New & Renewable Energy Industry ISSUE 46 November 2000 THE BACK PAGE STORY THE FIRST STRAW      Anglian straw truck leaving the power station after delivering fuel Elean Power Station at Sutton near Ely, Cambridgeshire, is the UK's first straw-fired power plant. With an electricity output of 36MW, it is the world's largest such facility. The power station will generate 271.5GWh/year, sufficient for 80,000 homes. The project was developed by EPR Ely, a partnership between Energy Power Resources (EPR) and Cinergy Global Power (CGP). FLS miljo built the plant and is operating it under contract until 2013. Until then all the electricity produced by the plant will be sold under an NFFO-3 contract. After that, the power will be sold under a Green Power Purchase Agreement. History The site at Sutton was a World War II airfield. In 1995, following the award of the NFFO contract, the entrepreneurial consortium EDC applied for planning permission to build a straw-fired power plant there based on Danish technology. This met with local opposition, but following fact-finding visits to Denmark and the developers' acceptance of planning conditions, the application was approved. However, EDC subsequently failed to secure the necessary finance and the project remained on ice for 3 years. During this period, other companies attempted, but failed, to reach financial close on the scheme. The project came to EPR in early 1998. In six months of intense activity, EPR transformed it into a format acceptable to HypoVereinsbank of Germany and the National Investment Bank of the Netherlands, who between them underwrote the bulk of the £60 million development costs. The plant was financed by a mixture of debt and equity under a conventional project finance agreement, with EPR and CGP providing the initial £8 million. The £52 million debt was subsequently syndicated to six European investment banks. Plant The plant comprises 18m-high east and west straw barns flanking a 25m-high central boiler plant. To blend in with the rest of the business park, the design had to resemble the existing warehouse buildings. The selection of a bottom grate-supported boiler avoided the need for significant boilerhouse structural steelwork. Process The power station will consume around 200,000 tonnes/year of straw. This is collected from farms within a 50-mile radius in the form of Hesston bales weighing over half a tonne. The delivered straw must have a moisture content below 25%. This is automatically tested and weight-corrected as the bales are craned from the delivery trucks, 12 bales at a time. The fuel is stored in the two enclosed barns with a total capacity of 2100 tonnes, enough for up to four days of operation. The unloading cranes automatically feed a straw conveyor system, serving twine-cutters and bale-breakers which shred the bales en-route to four screw stokers feeding individual burners. The straw is burned on a two-stage grate. The technology used at Elean Power Station has been thoroughly proven in a number of plant throughout Europe. The boiler plant is a typical high-temperature, high-pressure, naturally circulating water tube construction. Prior to its passage to the turbine, steam from the boiler is superheated to 5400°C and 92 bar. Superheated steam passes through a high-efficiency turbo-generator. High- and low-pressure turbines are coupled to a common generator. The plant is subject to stringent noise emission levels and these were taken into account when selecting the air-cooled condenser, which is currently used to dissipate the waste heat. For the future, though, provision has been made to serve future heat sinks, such as a proposed greenhouse development. After passing through an economiser, the cooled flue gases are neutralised by lime injection and passed through a bag filter to remove particulates and adsorbed heavy metal salts. The fly ash, which together with the boiler grate bottom ash equates to 5% of the fuel input, is collected and stored. These segregated ash streams are rich in valuable potassium and phosphate salts and form the basis of organic agricultural fertilisers. Power is exported from the site to an Eastern Electricity substation, via an 11km connection. The initial few kilometres of the route, which runs close to local villages, is underground to minimise impact. Future Running currently on 100% straw, Elean Power Station also has the capability of using a range of biofuels and up to 10% natural gas. Whatever the exact make-up of its fuel in the course of its life, the plant represents an important first in the development of renewables in the UK and a significant step forward towards the Government's objectives for renewables deployment over the coming years. For more information contact: John Hewson, Energy Power Resources Ltd, Tel: 01454 618333. YOUR NEWS FOR NEW REVIEW If you are involved in an initiative of potential interest to the UK new & renewables industry, we would like to hear about it, with a view to covering the story in a future issue. Contact the Editor (see below for details). NEW REVIEW NEW REVIEW is published quarterly for the UK new & renewable energy industry by ETSU on behalf of the DTI. Views expressed in the publication do not necessarily represent the views or policies of the Government or the views of ETSU. Neither the DTI nor ETSU endorses any of the products or services featured in NEW REVIEW. Please address correspondence to: Dr Barry Hague, Editor - NEW REVIEW, ETSU, Harwell, Didcot, Oxon OX11 0QJ. For more information about the DTI's New & Renewable Energy Programme, contact: New & Renewable Energy Enquiries Bureau, ETSU, Harwell, Didcot, Oxon OX11 0QJ; Tel: 01235 432450/433601, Fax: 01235 433066, E-mail: NRE-Enquiry@aeat.co.uk You can also visit the Programme's Web site at www.dti.gov.uk/renewable/index.html  | index | Home - Search - Site Map - Contact Us Site Information New Review is produced by ETSU on behalf of the DTI.  Views expressed in the publication do not necessarily represent the views or policies of the Government or the views of ETSU.  Neither the DTI or ETSU endorses any of the products or services featured in NEW REVIEW.  Please address any correspondence to:  Dr Barry Hague, Editor - NEW REVIEW, ETSU, Harwell, Didcot, Oxon, OX11 0QJ. For more information about the DTI's New & Renewable Energy Programme, contact: New & Renewable Energy Enquiries Bureau, ETSU, Harwell, Didcot, Oxon OX11 0QJ; Tel: 01235 432450/433601, Fax: 01235 433066 E-mail: NRE-Enquires@aeat.co.uk