Fired up for £30m power station

A £30m wood burning power station is set to be built on an industrial estate in Sheffield despite protests from dozens of people.
Peter Lowe. MD Hadee Engineering, which backs on to the power station site.Peter Lowe. MD Hadee Engineering, which backs on to the power station site.
Peter Lowe. MD Hadee Engineering, which backs on to the power station site.

UYE (UK) has secured funding for the plant, which would generate electricity by burning recovered timber from demolition sites.

The firm says it would also include a district heating system that could heat hundreds of local homes and businesses.

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The site is at the back of Hadee Engineering Ltd, on Holbrook industrial estate off Rother Valley Way at Halfway. Construction is due to start in August.

Holbrook biomass power stationHolbrook biomass power station
Holbrook biomass power station

Plans were submitted in 2012 - and attracted dozens of complaints from locals worried about smells, air and noise pollution and congestion. Sheffield City Council granted planning permission in 2013.

Peter Lowe, managing director of Hadee Engineering, said he had been denied the chance to buy the land or use Rother Valley Way for access.

He added: “I’ve extended four times since 1976 and employ 50 but they said I’d be building to closely to the brook. Everything I wanted they have now got.”

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The project has secured £14.6m funding from the Government-owned UK Green Investment Bank and project management company Equitix.

An additional £15m of private capital is being pumped into the scheme from the Equitix Energy Efficiency Fund.

UYE says it is expected to create 60 jobs during construction and 30 full-time positions once operational. It will be managed by Veolia, the council’s waste partner and has a 25-year expected life span.

Stephen Brooks, director, UYE (UK), of Sheffield, said: “It has taken us over five years and almost half a million pounds to get this project designed, consented and funded and we are absolutely delighted that the UK Green Investment Bank and Equitix have had the courage and commitment to work with a local, small private company and fund this community-scale CHP ready project.

“This project is the first of similar proposed developments community-scale energy generation projects to cut carbon emissions.”

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