£52m waste-to-bioethanol plant set to be built in northeast

Greenwise Staff

28th June 2010

A £52 million bioethanol plant is set to be built in the North East of England following a £7.3 million Government grant.

The 30 million-litre waste-to-bioethanol plant – the first of its kind in Europe – is being built by INEOS Bio and could be operational by 2012, should Government incentives come on stream in time.

Based at the INEOS Seal Sands site in the Tees Valley, it will convert 100,000 tonnes annually of biodegradable household and commercial waste into 24,000 tonnes of zero carbon road transport fuel and three megawatts (MW) of renewable electricity for homes and industry per year.

The new plant will help create 350 construction jobs and over 40 permanent skilled roles, and by 2015 could be expanded into a larger integrated biorefinery, combining advanced bioenergy production with advanced waste treatment.

Renewable energy targets

INEOS said the biorefinery would help meet the UK’s renewable energy targets for 2020. Under the Renewable Energy Directive, the UK has to obtain 15 per cent of energy from renewable sources by 2020. Latest statistics show the UK reached three per cent by 2009.

"Using our technology, the waste that is collected from homes and offices and otherwise thrown away, can be recycled into clean biofuel for cars and renewable electricity for homes and industry," said Peter Williams, ceo of INEOS Bio.

The grant funding has come from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and regional development agency One North East.

"This grant from One North East and the Department for Energy and Climate Change, together with the considerable support that we are receiving from organisations such as the National Non Food Crop Centre, is enabling us to make progress with our commercialisation plans in the North East of England," said Williams.

INEOS said the plant would use the company’s advanced BioEnergy Process Technology, which uses anaerobic digestion to convert gases derived directly from biomass into bioethanol. This bioethanol production is integrated with combined heat and power generation.

INEOS Bio is part of INEOS, the world’s third largest chemicals company and a leading manufacturer of petrochemicals, specialty chemicals and oil products.