Tilbury Power Station

Tilbury Power Station, which is located in Tilbury, Essex, operated as a 1,131 megawatt (MW) coal-fired power station from 1969 until 2011. RWE npower proposed to establish a new 1,600 megawatt supercritical coal plant at the site but, in November 2009, announced that it had shelved these plans. (See Tilbury Power Station (Proposed) for more details.)

It subsequently converted the existing plant to a 750 MW biomass plant which was commissioned in early 2012. At the time of announcing the conversion RWE stated that, while the plant was slated to close under the terms of the European Union Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD), the company may seek to have the plant relicensed if it proved profitable. In late 2012 RWE Power revealed that it was applying for permits to allow the plant to operate for a decade beyond its slated closure date.

The plant was permanently closed on August 13, 2013 after RWE abandoned its proposal to run the plant for another decade on wood.

Note: the coal stockpiles indicate that the satellite image shows the power station before the conversion to wood pellet firing.

Background
The proposed new 1600 megawatt supercritical coal plant had a notional commissioning date of 2014.

However, in November 2009 RWE npower announced that it had shelved plans for the proposed new coal fired power stations at Tilbury in Essex and Blyth in Northumberland. In a media release it claimed that the proposed power stations "continued to be excellent power generation options for the future." In a media release, the company's Chief Technical Officer, Kevin McCullough, stated that "in the current market, we’re unable to make an economic case for new coal-fired power stations. We are considering the implications of the Government’s policy review on the conditions to be applied to new coal stations. We firmly believe new coal-fired generation should have a role to play in a low carbon economy alongside gas, nuclear power and renewable energy sources."

Conversion to biomass
In April 2011, RWE announced that it planned to convert the 1,050-megawatt coal-power station to run entirely on wood pellets, reportedly as part of a UK government plan to help reach a European Union target of getting 15 percent of national energy from renewable sources. The conversion to a 750MW plant, which made Tilbury the largest biomass plant in the U.K., was completed in January 2012.

Britain changed subsidies known as Renewable Obligation Certificates in July 2010 to support biomass plants. Tilbury is one of nine U.K. power plants with a limited number of hours left to operate under EU laws to curb the release of gases linked to acid rain. The stations must close by 2016 or when the allotted hours are used. At the time that RWE announced the biomass conversion option it flagged that the company would continue to operate the plant under the EU Large Plant Directive but may seek to have it relicensed if the biomass firing proved profitable.

British generators that mix biomass with coal are eligible for at least half a renewable certificate for every megawatt-hour they produce. These are tradable and were worth about 49.89 pounds a megawatt-hour in the last certificate auction on March 29. The U.K. is considering changing aid later this year and may create a new band of subsidy to accommodate conversions. The U.K. introduced a carbon-dioxide tax on power emissions starting in 2013 and plans further changes to encourage investment in low-carbon power generation. RWE may also consider whether to close the Tilbury plant and build a natural-gas fed station, according to the company.

The Tilbury station emitted 2.8 million metric tons of CO2 in 2010. While burning biomass releases about the same amount of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere as coal, it doesn’t require emissions permits under the EU’s cap-and-trade program. In the five years through 2012, power stations get a portion of EU allowances for free. Tilbury receives an annual allocation of 1.5 million permits in those years, which can be sold in the market if unused. The power station will continue to receive free EU permits through the end of 2012.

The plant uses 2.3 million tonnes of wood pellets imported from a plant in Georgia the company owns and from British Columbia. The plant also uses some oil for start-up operations. However, in late 2012 RWE Power revealed that it was applying for permits to allow the plant to operate for a decade beyond its slated closure date.

Related SourceWatch Articles

 * United Kingdom and coal

Resources

 * Archived Google satellite image of the Tilsbury plant before its January 2012 conversion to a wood-fired plant.