Powering ahead with biomass plant plans

ENERGY bosses will today lodge plans for a controversial biomass plant on Edinburgh's waterfront which they claim could provide more than half of the city's electricity.

Forth Energy, a partnership between Forth Ports and Scottish & Southern Energy, has submitted the plans to the Scottish Government, but faces widespread local opposition.

The firm said the project would create up to 700 construction jobs and a further 75 posts once up and running, providing renewable energy equivalent to 54 per cent of the Capital's electricity needs.

If given the go-ahead, the facility could be up and running by the end of 2015.

There are concerns, however, about the scale of the plant - it will include a 120-metre-high chimney - and last week NHS Lothian said a fuller assessment of the public health impacts had to be carried out.

Using wood chip brought in by ship from North America or Scandinavia, the plant will also produce renewable heat, according to its developers.

Forth Energy said the fuel would produce one tenth of the carbon from equivalent coal-fuelled electricity generation and a quarter of the carbon of the current grid electricity.

Calum Wilson, the firm's managing director, said: "The port of Leith is one of the country's leading ports and an ideal location for a renewable energy plant, which can make best use of existing port facilities.

"Leith has the potential to become a centre for the renewable energy industry and has been identified by Scottish Enterprise as a suitable location to support the expanding off-shore renewable energy industry.

"Edinburgh waterfront's development is planned to take place over a 30 to 40-year period. The focus of development over the next decade will be on the harbour area, improving and further developing Ocean Terminal and completing Western Harbour.

"It is important that the waterfront development creates an environment which is sustainable and energy efficient, and the renewable energy plant is an important part of achieving this vision."

He added that the plant would make a "significant contribution" to achieving Scotland's renewable energy target of generating 80 per cent of its electricity and 11 per cent of its heat from renewable sources by 2020.

Forth Energy has also submitted applications for renewable energy plants in Dundee, Grangemouth and Rosyth.

Leith councillor Gordon Munro said there was a groundswell of opinion against the plans among people in the area.

He said: "I don't think Forth Energy have done enough to win over the community and I think they know that.

"There are a mix of reasons why people are against it - the size, the scale and the method of energy generation.

"But I don't think Forth Energy would have been conceived and would have gone to these lengths had they not been given an indication by civil servants or government ministers that this would be looked at and considered favourably."