The British Government has given its consent for the £500m Tees Renewable Energy Plant which will be a biomass power plant with an expected capacity of 296MW. The plant will be located in Teesport and will produce enough electricity to power around 600,000 homes.

This makes the Tees Renewable Energy Plant, when it is brought online in 2012, one of the largest biomass power plants in the world.

The power plant construction is being developed by MGT Power Limited with Chris Moore, company director saying “The Government’s consent is welcome news as we are at an advanced stage with forestry establishment for fuel sourcing, and power plant procurement.”

So far so good, but then we move on to the very important part of where the fuel to generate such huge levels of electricity is going to be sourced from. It’s at this point that I’m beginning to become a little concerned because the release that I read mentions that the fuel will come from sustainable forestry projects in North and South America and the Baltic States.

All of those Carbon savings that are claimed will be made each year, some 1.2 million tonnes, will be reduced dramatically by the carbon footprint of the transportation to get the wood chips to the UK. This is not an insignificant factor in the operation of this power plant, yet it has been virtually glossed over in the press release.

One of the most important factors in producing electricity from renewable sources is that it is done, for the most part, locally. The idea is to cut carbon emissions to the greatest extent as possible. Sourcing wood chips from the other side of the world and shipping it over in enormous quantities is far from an ideal scenario.

From the press release: “The plant will use around 2.4m tonnes of woodchips per annum and will operate at baseload – 24 hours a day, all year round. This means the Tees Renewable Energy Plant will produce the same amount of renewable electricity over a year as a 1,000MW wind farm.”

2.4 million tonnes of woodchips is a hell of a lot of woodchips that must be transported to the Tees Renewable Energy Plant.

Am I wrong to be concerned about where the woodchips are going to be sourced from? Happy to hear the thoughts of others on the proposed power plant in Teesport.