Bristol City Council has rejected plans regarding the construction of a wood-burning power plant in Avonmouth.

Proposed for development by construction group Balfour Beatty and Canadian renewable energy firm Nexterra, the bioenergy facility would have been situated at the Chittening Trading Estate, on a waste wood stockpile site currently used by wood recyclers Boomeco.

The planning document outlines that the development would have involved gasifying 60,000 tonnes of wood biomass, sourced from neighbouring wood recycling company Boomeco, to produce 11-megawatts of electricity. Currently, Boomeco’s processed wood, largely sourced from household waste recycling centres as well as construction and demolition waste, is exported to biomass plants in Sweden.

However, despite councillors recommending that the development be approved, plans for the power plant were rejected by Bristol City Council’s Development Control Committee yesterday (5 November), by five votes to three. The decision was largely made following public concerns over air quality, despite the Environment Agency finding that the facility would not have a ‘significant impact’ on air quality.

The official reasoning states: ‘The development by virtue of the cumulative impact with other permitted schemes in Avonmouth, would result in an unacceptable adverse impact on air quality in Avonmouth, contrary to policies BCS23 of the Core Strategy and DM33 of the Site Allocations and Development Management Policies 2013.’

'More evidence needed'

Councillor Gus Hoyt, Assistant Mayor for Neighbourhood, told Resource: “This was a very finely balanced decision, but the councillors on the committee listened to the fears of the people of Avonmouth and decided to reject the application.

“While projects that provide sustainable energy are vitally important, it had to be weighed against the potential risks to air quality and the health of local residents.

“The councillors felt that more evidence was needed before they were confidently able to approve the project, so decided that on balance it was right to turn down the application.

“There have been a number of problems with air quality in Avonmouth, and we are doing what we can to address these issues, including extending our air quality monitoring in the area for another nine months.”

The council said that it has given ‘clear reasons’ to the developers over why the plans we refused, and would be open to advising on how the objections to the proposal might be overcome.

Balfour Beatty has not yet issued a comment on the council’s decision.

Biomass in the UK

Plant biomass combustion accounted for 18.3 per cent of the UK’s renewable energy in 2012, and the Department of Energy & Climate Change’s ‘Renewables Roadmap’ estimates that by 2020, biomass could potentially provide between 26 and 42 per cent of renewable energy in the UK, but there are worries the government could be too dependent on biomass to reach its statutory target of generating 15 per cent of the UK’s energy from renewable sources by 2020.

Indeed, a 2012 report from the RSPB, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace warned that as well as being too reliant on biomass power, producing power through certain types of biomass combustion can be ‘dirtier than coal’.

Find out more about the Avonmouth biomass development or the concerns over biomass.