Work starts on £80m low carbon waste plant in Dagenham

Work has started on an £80m plant in Dagenham which will transform household rubbish into clean energy to power up to 15,000 local homes.

It will be one of the UK’s first large scale advanced gasification plants and is expected to create 25 permanent skilled jobs as well as up to 100 construction jobs during the building works.

Once it is operational in 2013 it will turn almost 100,000 tonnes of waste into around 19 megawatts of energy each year.

The site has been bought from Ford Motor Company which will benefit from the energy generated by the facility, the majority of which will be exported to the National Grid. The use of renewable energy plays an important role in the running of Ford’s Dagenham plant, which has two existing wind turbines with a planned third on the way.

The gasification plant works by taking residual household rubbish and breaking it down through thermal and chemical processes to create a synthetic gas fuel which is then used to generate electricity.

The Shanks ‘Frog Island’ facility, which will provide the rubbish, is less than half a mile away from where the gasification plant is being built, so transportation is minimal, helping to cut down on carbon emissions.

The Mayor of London Boris Johnson said: "This will be a fantastic facility taking our everyday rubbish and miraculously transforming it into a valuable resource - electricity."

Further information:
Greater London Authority