Green light for £500m power plant

10:20am Thursday 7th August 2008

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THE go-ahead has been given for a £500m gas-fired power station to be built at Carrington.

The plant will be located on industrial land at the site of the former coal-fired Carrington Power Station, alongside the Manchester Ship Canal and the River Mersey, and will generate enough electricity to supply 500,000 homes.

The Government’s Department of Business Employment and Regulatory Reform (DBERR) gave the outline consent last week to Yorkshire-based Bridestones Developments Ltd. Consent had originally been granted for a smaller plant at this site in 2007.

It is expected that construction will commence in 2009 and the plant will be operational in 2012.

Bridestones spokesman Mike Benson said: “We are delighted that the Government has approved our plans and we will now focus on the design details and a construction programme.”

The project will create up to 600 jobs during the two-year construction period, and around 50 permanent jobs.

Gas-fired power plants emit half as much carbon dioxide as coal plants and burn fuel more efficiently. They currently account for approximately 40 per cent of the UK’s electrical output.

The final design details will also be subject to discussions and approval from Trafford Council.

It is acknowledged that new generating capacity must be built in the UK to replace the ageing coal plants that are due to close in the next few years, as well as most of the nuclear plants which are already in the process of being decommissioned. The new plant at Carrington will help to meet the shortfall resulting from those coal and nuclear plant closures.

The new plant will also have the potential to provide steam to neighbouring businesses that require a supply, further increasing its efficiency. In addition, Bridestones will ensure that enough land is available to incorporate a facility for capturing and storing carbon dioxide, although the technology is still in its infancy.

Construction of the old coal plant at the Carrington site, which started generating in 1956, began shortly after the Second World War, with operations continuing until 1991 when it was subsequently demolished.

Output from the new plant will be more than three times the amount of electricity generated by the former coal plant but will occupy only half the land.