In Wednesbury, the UK’s first municipal waste gasification plant is being developed by Kew Technology Ltd, in partnership with the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI), and which can be used to produce clean electricity, heat, hydrogen and liquid fuels from waste. Local West Bromwich MP Adrian Bailey recently visited the facility marking the plant's capability to supply electricity to the grid from syngas, for the first time.
gasification plant in Wednesbury marking the plant’s capability to supply electricity to the grid
from syngas, for the first time.
Adrian Bailey, MP for West Bromwich West, recently met with energy experts from Kew Technology and the ETI to discuss the 1.5MWe Waste Gasification Commercial Demonstration Plant, built at the Sustainable Energy Centre in Wednesbury. Once fully operational, the innovative waste gasification plant will provide enough electricity to power 2 500 homes.
This is an inspirational project which has the potential to play an important part in providing green energy worldwide. It is particularly pleasing to see a company in the Black country spearheading the drive to achieve our climate change targets whilst providing investment and jobs locally, Adrian Bailey MP said.
The plant is cleaner, more efficient and more compact than many other energy from waste (EfW) designs and could be suitable for providing heat and power to factories, hospitals, and small towns.
Significant project milestone
It was a pleasure to welcome Adrian Bailey MP to the plant and discuss the opportunities, this technology could provide for the local area and nationally. Achieving the capability to supply clean renewable energy to the grid, for the first time, is a fantastic milestone, as a result of our hot commissioning programme. We’re looking forward to continue our operational testing phase, concluding early 2020, said Mark Johnson, Commercial Manager at Kew Technology.
Founded in 2016 by Dr Kamal Kalsi and Kevin Chown, Kew Technology has the specific purpose of facilitating the delivery of a world-first high-efficiency advanced thermal conversion (ATC) plant using specialist intellectual property owned by the ETI and Dr Kalsi.
The 1.5 MWe commercial demonstration project is being led by Aldrige West Midlands-based Kew Technology.
I’m delighted that Adrian Bailey MP visited the plant to mark our fantastic milestone. This project is a great example of how this technology can have so many opportunities for future community energy solutions that can be scaled to meet the drive for green fuels or chemicals. Over the next five years, the priority should be for Kew Technology to discover the most effective focus area to harness the potential of waste gasification, said Paul Winstanley, Project Manager at ETI.
The ETI is a public-private partnership between global energy and engineering companies – BP, Caterpillar, EDF, Rolls-Royce and Shell – and the UK government and its role is to act as a conduit between academia, industry and the government to accelerate the development of low carbon technologies.
Amna Bezanty and Mark Johnson from Kew Technology.
