Uskmouth Power Station (Subcoal)

Uskmouth Power Station (Subcoal) is a coal-fired power station located in Newport, South Wales which was considering a conversion to become an Energy from Waste facility utilising waste derived fuel pellets as a feedstock known as subcoal. A report to the London Stock Exchange on the 28th April 2022 set out the intention to no longer pursue this conversion and to withdraw its permit variation.

Uskmouth Power Station (Subcoal) Planning
Site Location See Residual EfW → page for a larger UK Wide map.
Waste Licence	LP3131SW
Operator	SIMEC Atlantis Energy
Region	Wales
Operational Capacity	450ktpa
Is site R1?	fal
When was R1 Granted?
What was the R1 value	0.00
Electrical Capacity	220.00MWe
Number of Lines	0
Number of Turbines	0
CHP
Technology Approach	EfW
Funding Type	[[]]

Operators Annual Report

Input Data

Year	HH	C&I	Clin	RDF	Total

Output Data

Year	IBA	IBA %ge of Tot IN	APC	APC %ge of Tot IN

Uskmouth Power Station. Bioenergy International, 2019

Summary

Uskmouth Power Station (Subcoal) is a coal-fired power station located in Newport, South Wales which was considering a conversion to become an Energy from Waste facility utilising waste derived fuel pellets as a feedstock known as subcoal. It was planned that 2 out of the 3 coal fired power generation units would be converted in two phases and, when operational, the facility would have consumed 900,000 tpa of subcoal (assumed to be 450,000 tps of subcoal per phase) to generate up to 220 MW of electricity.

SIMEC Atlantis Energy Limited is the owner, developer and would have been the operator of the facility, which was scheduled to become operational in 2021 with a project lifetime of 20 years. The facility was expected to cost approximately £185m to develop.

This project would have been the world’s first conversion of a coal fired power station to use waste derived fuel and would have been one of the largest waste to value projects currently under development in Europe.

An application was made to update the Environmental Permit for the site, and additional information has been requested by NRW to be able to determine the permit. The planning application to erect silos, conveyors, a de-dusting shed and extensions to the rail unloading shed was reported as called in by the Welsh Government in February 2021.

The London Stock Exchange news article suggests that the planning application and the permit variation processes have both been terminated.

Technology

The technology that would have been implemented at this facility was a combustion system supplied by Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Europe.

Construction

The conversion was expected to be completed during 2021. Front End Engineering Design (FEED) tests and studies were successfully completed by the FEED partners for the project WSP UK Ltd, RJM Corporation Technical Services Ltd, and Simec Subcoal Fuels (SSF) (a 50:50 joint venture between N+P Group and SIMEC Energy). Medium scale testing obtained a stable flame, revealing stable combustion of a 100% waste derived fuel pellet is achievable.

SIMEC Atlantis Energy Limited announced in March 2020 the successful production of 100 tonnes of the waste fuel pellets to be used for large-scale combustion testing at the facility.

Waste Input

The facility would have consumed 900,000 tonnes per annum of waste derived fuel pellets formed from non-recyclable waste called subcoal. The fuels pellets have been developed to a specification to have characteristics similar to coal. SubCoal pellets have been designed and are being produced by N+P Group and would have been transported from fuel processing plants in England via railway for combustion at the facility. The pellets are comprised of 50% biogenic waste material and 50% plastic waste.