Frequently Asked Questions

There are a number of features that are required when considering the location of a power plant. The site should preferably have an industrial setting, the development needs to be close to its market, the site needs to be located in an area where there is an available skilled workforce and the location needs to comply with planning policy.

Looking at each point in turn:

• Industrial setting

The Thames Gateway Power facility is proposed to be developed on an 8 acre plot on the Sustainable Industries Park at Dagenham Dock. This site has historically been part of the Dagenham Dock and its workings, with rail lines and oil and coal storage being used across the site. This project will see the construction of a building that currently has outline consent on land that is part of the London Sustainable Industries Park with Thames Gateway Power providing the 'green spark' to the wider Sustainable Industries Park.

• Close to its Market

A fundamental principle of sustainability is proximity. This principle seeks to ensure that activities are carried out close to the market they serve and are limited in scale to represent the local community; the principle seeks to reduce vehicle transport and allow convenient access to the development for the workforce.

All London Boroughs produce significant waste streams from the businesses that serve the large population and Barking & Dagenham is no different. Locating a facility in East London stops waste being transferred out of the area for disposal, contributing to the reduction of greenhouses gases from transportation and through renewable energy production. Indeed, 15% of the throughput for the power plant is available within the Sustainable Industries Park development and potential users of the power and heat/steam are also neighbours.

• Available Skilled Workforce

Thames Gateway Power will need employees that reflect the full spectrum of employment with over 50% of the jobs of NVQ Level 2 standard and the average income being £1000 per annum over the average for London. The job roles will include engineers, technicians and operations management staff. A key reason for selecting Dagenham Dock for the development of a power plant is the availability of the workforce and the historical pre-disposition to manufacturing and engineering.

• Compliance with Planning Policy

A thorough review of current and impending planning policies for the region was undertaken when looking at the Dagenham Dock site. Two significant points are worth noting.
First, in the draft Joint Waste Development Plan by the East London Waste Authority, the Dagenham Dock site has been identified as beingsuitable for proposals which include energy recovery and resource park development.

First, in the 'Statement to assist Applicants in preparing Planning Applications for Waste Management Development' prepared by Derby and Derbyshire Councils, the Raynesway site has been identified as being suitable for proposals which include energy recovery and resource park development.

Secondly, London, as every authority does, has a renewable energy target. However, London have gone further and created a list to show the mix of technologies that London would expect to generate this renewable energy and this includes gasification. The Thames Gateway Power development will have an installed electricity capacity of 16 Mega Watts (50% which is classified as renewable), and this is equivalent to 14% of the renewable electricity output required from gasification.

Bearing the above points in mind, it was decided to go ahead with the Planning Application on the site for a power plant.

For more details see 'Why Dagenham' section of the website.

Thames Gateway Power will bring a total of 35 jobs and over £1.1M of wages into the local economy. Jobs will range from administrative staff, machine operatives, energy plant engineers and site managers.

Thames Gateway Power will be open for deliveries of waste from 7am to 10pm in the week and 7am to 1pm on a Saturday. There will be no deliveries on Sundays and Bank Holidays.

The Energy Generation Facility will operate 24 hours a day to ensure a continuous supply of electricity to the local distribution network.

Deliveries will only be allowed between 7am and 10pm in the week and 7am and 1pm at weekends. It is anticipated that there will be less than 50 trucks per day averaging out at around 3.3 per hour.

All activities at the Thames Gateway Power facility will take place inside the buildings. A noise assessment has been carried out that covers the nearest properties by our consultants and it found that the noise from the plant would actually be less than the current background noise levels and, therefore, would not be heard at these properties.

Before the facility can begin operation it will need an Environmental Permit (EP) issued by the Environment Agency. The EP sits alongside the Planning Permission as a regulatory control on the activities and operations at the power plant.

An Environmental Permit (EP) is a licence issued by the Environment Agency. You must have an EP to operate if you are:

• • An installation – one of more than 20,000 facilities carrying out the activities listed in Schedule 1 of the EP Regulations. These include activities in the energy, metals, minerals, chemicals and waste sectors.
• • A waste operation – any disposal or recovery of waste which is not exempt under the EP Regulations, or
• • A mobile plant – carrying out one of the above activities or waste operations.

The EP will usually have conditions of operation that the company must abide by. Permit conditions may comprise some or all of the following:

• • Conditions stipulating objectives or outcomes
• • Standards to mitigate a particular hazard / risk, or
• • Conditions addressing particular legislative requirements

The EP will list things like the waste types that can be accepted at the facility, hours of operation, emission limits and reporting information back to the Environment Agency. The EP application to the EA will include an assessment of the environmental risk of the proposals including the risk under both normal and abnormal operating conditions. The EA should satisfy itself that the operator's assessment of the risk is sufficiently robust. In particular, any assumptions that the operator has made about its proposals must be clearly justified using Best Available Technology (BAT) assessments. The EP application has Best Available Technology (BAT) at its core. The reasons for choosing a particular process must be scrutinised using BAT and then show the reasoning and justification for choosing that process over other potential alternatives. The EA should then assess the application and the adequacy of the impact assessment including whether the control measures proposed by the operator are appropriate for mitigating the risks and their potential impact.

For waste management facilities the EA cannot issue a permit until planning permission for the activity has been given. Nevertheless, the EA actively encourage applicants to dual track the planning and EP applications so they can begin their formal considerations early on in the planning process.

A new application for an Environmental Permit (EP) has to be accepted by the Environment Agency as 'Duly Made' before the statutory consultation period can begin. ‘Duly Made’ status is when the Environment Agency are happy that they have enough information to be able to start the consultation phase, however, they may still ask questions about the application. The ‘Duly Made’ status is an important milestone in the whole process of gaining the required permissions to open Thames Gateway Power.

An Environmental Permit (EP) has a statutory minimum time period for determination. The EP cannot be given out in less than 4 months, however, if the Environment Agency require more information to be able to assess the EP application then the 'clock' stops until the information is received. Due to this the EP is more likely to take around 8 months.

All environmental impacts will be governed by the Environmental Permit that will be issued by the Environment Agency once they are satisfied that the Resource Park will comply with all relevant legislation and limits. Without this Environmental Permit the Resource Park cannot operate.

a. Air

Emissions to air are controlled by the EU Waste Incineration Directive that sets limits on 20 constituent parts of the flue gas from the process. These controls are the strictest of any power plants in the UK and are between 2 and 4 times tighter than a biomass power plant.

b. Water

There will be two distinct water flows on site – dirty water from washing down, etc. will go to foul sewer while rainwater will be collected from the car park and building roof and held in a sub-surface storage lagoon to give a steady flow into the drains to help stop any potential local flooding in heavy rainstorms.

Emission levels for the gasification plant are set by a European Directive. These emission limits are stricter than any other form of solid and liquid fuel combustion and energy generation despite having the same types of emissions. For the Planning application and the Environmental Permit application we must model the air emissions as if they were emitted at the maximum levels permitted by Europe. During operation, if the plant goes over the maximum levels permitted it must shut down within 4 hours, so modelling at these limits gives a worst case scenario for the regulators to assess the facility against. It is expected that the gasification plant will operate at less than 50% of the European limit values.

Thermal treatments for waste are one of the most strictly regulated industrial processes in Europe and are monitored closely in the UK by the Environment Agency and the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA). Energy from waste plants are today operating safely and efficiently across the UK and the rest of the world. Within the EU there are 425 'Energy from Waste' plants treating some 63 Million tonnes of waste each year.

Over the last ten years, detailed and reliable research studies, including those commissioned by the Government and Health Protection Agencies, have shown that there are no health risks associated with thermal waste treatments. The UK Health Protection Agency (HPA) has also issued a position statement on incineration of waste that looked at research carried out before the tighter EU legislative controls were introduced in 2002. In the paper they have looked at several studies including DEFRA's study on the health effects of waste management. Cancer, respiratory disease and birth defects were all considered, and no evidence has been found for a link between the incidence of the disease and the current generation of energy from waste plants. The HPA are a Government Agency set up to advise the NHS, Local Health Boards and Primary Care Trusts to give an integrated approach to health issues in the UK.

The document from the HPA can be seen here

As with the Planning Permission there is a statutory minimum time period that an Environmental Permit (EP) can be determined in for the Thames Gateway Power proposal. This time period is 1 month for the local community to ask questions and 4 months for the local authority and Government bodies. It is during the 1 month public participation period that the local community can make representations and have their input as to how the facility is run and what wastes it can accept.

The Thames Gateway Power facility will be built using the highest quality materials and will be a mix of wood and stone to give it a modern contemporary feel. The whole of the Sustainable Industries Park will be built to BREEAM Excellent standards with trees playing a large role in the landscaping. See the photo montages and photo-realistic images for further information in the How it Looks section.

The site for the power plant was chosen due to its industrial heritage and the local industrial area surrounding it. A comprehensive visual assessment has been carried out to assess the Resource Park's influence on the surrounding landscape and where the site might be seen from. To help with understanding of this and compare views with where you live please see the photo montages in the How it Looks section. The impact of this building has been deemed as negligible.

There will be a flue and it will be 44 metres high. The flue will be coloured grey and blue to blend with the skyline. The flue will be for the controlled emission of the cleaned exhaust from the electricity generating equipment.

Thames Gateway Power is capable of producing in excess of 16MW of electricity – 128GWh per annum. This is enough to power more than 31,500 homes which is 45% of the homes in Barking & Dagenham.

The electricity will be connected to the local distribution network and will be used by local businesses and households. It will not need to go on the National Grid as there are enough users on the local network that can benefit from the renewable electricity.

The Renewables Obligation Order 2006 (and 2009) specifically includes Advanced Conversion Technologies as a renewable source of electricity generation. Advanced Conversion Technologies include gasification, pyrolysis and anaerobic digestion.

We would estimate the bio-degradable portion of the waste being gasified to be around 50% and this is in line with Ofgems figures for household waste.

Thames Gateway Power will have an electricity generation rating of 16 MW, which is equivalent to 128 GWh per annum assuming a 91% capacity factor (uptime). However, the biodegradable portion of 50% needs to be taken into account to give us the total renewable electricity generation giving a net renewable electricity production from the Resource Park of 64 GWh per annum. Therefore, Thames Gateway Power will satisfy circa 10% of the total target for renewable electricity generation in London from gasification.

Thames Gateway Power will only accept residue material that has already been through and sorted for recyclate. It is likely that this is a condition of running the plant. Furthermore, the gasification plant is flexible enough to be able to use alternative materials (e.g. biomass) to generate electricity so will not be reliant on waste feedstock that could include valuable recyclable materials.

Thames Gateway Power uses the Waste Hierarchy principles to avoid undermining any preferred method of dealing with waste.

Gasification is a process that can take non-inert materials and converts the solid material to a gas that can be used in the same way as gas in the home for heating and hot water. Gasification has been used since the late 1800s for the production of town gas for street lighting and cooking in the home, so this is a tried and tested process over many, many years.

Gasification is a highly efficient process whereby virtually all the energy in the material being gasified is released into the gas and, therefore, a very efficient method of generating steam and electricity from waste materials. Waste types accepted for energy generation will be along the lines of packaging that is too contaminated for recycling, treated wood wastes, damaged and/or out of date food from supermarkets and other wastes that are too low in value to recycle.

While gasification and incineration are both thermal processes, it's important to point out the differences and the benefits of gasification.

Incineration is simply mass burn with relatively inefficient recovery of energy from the waste. The waste itself is the fuel in incineration. There is often in excess of 10 or 15% of the waste material left after going through the incineration process.

Gasification is a controlled sub-stoichiometric process that is used to turn waste materials into a syngas. There are no emissions from the gasification process. The syngas is then used as a fuel to generate heat and power and because of this it is a far cleaner and efficient technology. In Germany they pump the gas from Advanced Conversion Technologies into their gas mains for use by households and industry. The gas from gasification can be used as a commodity in its own right, the waste is merely the resource to provide the gas.

One of the pre-requisites for the technology chosen by Thames Gateway Power was flexibility. With waste targets and legislation pushing waste management ever further up the waste hierarchy, we could be in the situation where suitable waste for the gasification plant is just not around anymore due to better design and recycling. The flexibility of the gasification system that will be used is that the plant can be turned over to gasify forestry waste and other biomass to generate electricity, so the plant will still be able to run and provide renewable heat and power. However, this will occur over time and so for the foreseeable future the facility will provide two services – one to managing waste locally and one to provide renewable and low carbon heat and power for the local area.

In order for the facility to fully close, the Environmental Permit must be handed back and accepted by the Environment Agency. An application to surrender the EP takes a minimum 3 months and this time is used to show the Agency that the land area that the permit applied to is no worse off than its original condition. This of course requires monitoring to be undertaken prior to building the facility so that comparisons can be made, but gives communities comfort knowing that their local area will not suffer detrimentally once the plant has closed.

Prior to submission of the Planning Application we submitted a Scoping Document to the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham Council to ask what type of information we would need to cover and include in a Planning Application. This Scoping Document was then sent out to other groups asking for their input. The following stakeholders were consulted at this early stage –

• Greater London Authority
• Planning Authority at LBBD
• Highways Authority at LBBD
• Economic Regeneration at LBBD
• Pollution Control & Air Quality at LBBD
• Archaeology Dept. at LBBD
• Landscape Dept. at LBBD
• Environment Agency
• Natural England
• National Grid
• Design for London

Other stakeholder groups are also contacted at the time the Planning Application is submitted such as Councillors, local community forums, local wildlife groups, neighbours to the site and the local media.

With such widespread use of the internet we have also decided to publish this web-site so that as many people as possible can access information on the proposal. By reading this web-site you are also being consulted and if you have any questions or you just want to stay informed then feel free to e-mail us using the form on the 'Contact Us' page or use the 'Stay Informed' box at the top of the page to enter your e-mail address for further updates.

We have committed to taking account of any constructive views and will take these on board and amend the proposal wherever possible.

The Planning Application will be submitted to the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham Council as well as the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation in February and they will have to advertise in the local press that they have received it. There will then be a minimum 16 week period for the relevant stakeholders and the general public to pass any comments or recommendations if they want to. Also during this time the Council may ask for additional information from us covering the Application.

As a part of the pre-application consultation there are two exhibition days for people to come along and see the proposals. These are on the 25th of January at Scrattons Farm and 26th January Bastable Avenue

In March we will be submitting the Environmental Permit application and this will cover off the operation and activities that will be carried out at the power plant including the permitted waste types. There is a Public Participation phase to the Environmental Permit application and this will be advertised on the Environment Agency website and in the local press once the application has been submitted.