Organic materials, such as straw, wood, energy crops and agricultural waste are used as a feedstock to produced power and heat using various technologies. The technologies available include combustion, pyrolysis, gasification and anaerobic digestion. The power output ranges in size from nominally 100Kw to 20 Mw.

A number of technologies are emerging and some are currently in use, but few are presently considered proven. The robustness of the technologies is however likely to strengthen over the period of this development.

Advantages

· Could meet a large proportion of the development's power and heating requirements.
· Opportunity to utilise organic waste from the community.
· Reliable (assumes development of current technologies and flexible power and heat supplies).
· Creates employment.
· Attract heat intensive industries (low cost heat).
· Could generate revenue for developers/local community for export electricity.
· Potential for absorption chilling application (climate control)

Limitations

· Further development of technology required.
· Choice and size of available technology.
· Size of plant/stack height.
· Transport movements.

Costs

· Estimates in the range of £1 million to £2 million per Mw installed.
· Payback dependent on tariff and ability to use organic waste fractions.

Applications

A large plant could provide the entirety of the development's power requirements and could have export (revenue) potential through sale of surplus into the national grid.
Could be part of the development's waste management strategy.
Smaller sized technologies would be suitable for schools, hospitals, leisure centres, industrial parks, office blocks etc.
Could provide heat for district heating system or heat intensive industries.