Saturday 3 February 2018

IT'S GETTING HOT AND STEAMY AT THE SINFIN INCINERATION PLANT

Nine years after the Sinfin incineration plant project became the hottest topic in the
Derby City Council planning department Resource Recovery Solutions or at least one of its parents Interserve have finally struck the match to light up the waste plants burners.
 
Interserve - a major player in construction projects across the UK and a parent of Resource Recovery Solutions (RRS) has been on the ropes in the last year or so as they suffered a number of problems in their energy from waste project portfolio with strong links to the collapse of ENERGOS the incineration technology developers for the Sinfin plant.
 
In the case of the Sinfin project Interserve and Renewi the other parent in this project have relied heavily on the experiences of two other projects in the UK in Milton Keynes and Glasgow which also use Energos technology. In the case of the Glasgow project who also employed Interserve to construct the plant Interserve suffered the ultimate shame of being thrown off the project.
Because of the collapse of ENERGOS and its claimed updated technology contractors have had to work through the plants installation learning from the experiences of the likes of the Milton Keynes facility.
Thank god we were able to delay the plant long enough that ENERGOS collapsed otherwise the Sinfin plant in Derby would already be polluting the city.
 
As it stands the Sinfin project has begun some forms of testing.
 The plant has started accepting waste again which is being converted into refuse derived fuel known as RDF. This "fuel" is currently being exported off site while the incineration section of the plant begins the warm up process so that it is able to be tested before becoming operational later in 2018.
We are told that currently the plant is using its diesel fuelled backup burners to warm the incineration lines up and that steam is being generated for steam blows to clean out the plants systems.
Emissions relating to this have been seen leaving the plants stack in recent weeks as shown below when in the early stages emissions were just a lazy flow.
 
 
As time has passed the plant has vastly ramped up its emissions which included steam being vented at low level from the rear of the plant.
 
 
Things developed further and in recent days the volume of steam being emitted from the rear of the plant around the cooling system reached far beyond what local people expected and in one case someone called the fire brigade thinking that the plant was on fire.
 
 
The plant unlike energy from waste plants in Holland etc has installed a giant cooling plant at the back of the plant to cool the steam produced after it has been used in the plants turbine. In Holland they use that energy in the steam to heat local buildings to get worth from the waste that was burnt. Here in Derby we waste that energy to the atmosphere which is quite shameful and why the plant is considered to be an inefficient D10 waste disposal plant compared to an R1 recovery facility.
 
While the contractor RRS indicates it has notified the fire service and also local businesses it isn't clear what if anything they have done to notify local residents in the likes of Victory Road and Sinfin Lane in relation to the large volume steam vents.
You would expect a contractor working for the local council would show the local community - its neighbours more respect than this.
 
In the coming weeks the plant will be testing its turbine to prove it can generate electricity and this includes providing proof to meet the requirements for ROC accreditation (but that's another story).
Then the contractor has to make the plant run for 25 years successfully - and within 10 working days of handover both the city and county council have to stump up £25 MILLION towards the plant.
 
Locals are steaming about this and the burners have only just been lit!
 
 
 
 ©SIMON BACON 2018