Spencer Group has been awarded a contract by Lynemouth Power Ltd to design and build a wood pellet handling, storage and rail-loading facility at the Port of Tyne, UK.
Hull-based Spencer Group, one of the UK’s leading privately-owned multi-disciplinary engineering businesses, has announced it had been awarded a contract by Lynemouth Power Ltd to design and build a facility for the handling, storage and rail-loading of wood pellets at the Port of Tyne.
Work on the project has begun and will handle up to 1.8 million tonnes of wood pellets per annum to meet the full requirements of Lynemouth Power Station. The facilities being designed and built by Spencer are at Tyne Dock, South Shields, where the Port of Tyne recently invested £25 million in extending Riverside Quay to support the project.
The fully integrated and automated Spencer system will enable wood pellets to be conveyed mechanically to one of three newly-built silos, each with 25 000 tonne storage capacity. The pellets will then be discharged from the silos via two conveying streams to a rail-loading facility to take them to Lynemouth. Particle controls will be in place throughout the system, as well as sophisticated measures to monitor and manage the condition of the wood pellets.
The project also includes construction of a control room, workshops, stores and welfare facilities, creating a standalone facility at the port. In addition, Spencer will carry out modifications to the existing rail infrastructure to provide dedicated rail lines to serve Lynemouth Power Station and connect the new facilities to the 11 000-volts mains supply.
Though the value of the contract has not been disclosed it is according to the company founder and Executive Chairman, Charlie Spencer OBE, the “largest single contract Spencer Group has secured in the materials handling and storage sector.”
In 2010 Spencer designed and built the biomass reception, handling and storage facility at Drax Power Station as well as the world’s first-of-its-kind wood pellet storage and rail-loading facility at the Port of Tyne for Drax. In 2013 it constructed biomass handling, storage and discharge facilities at the Port of Hull, also for Drax.
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