Renewable power plant will create 500 Tees jobs

May 13 2009 by Karen Dent, The Journal

A £200m RENEWABLE power station could create 500 jobs on Teesside if it gets the green light from planners.

Gaia Power, which was set up by Michael Fox – founder of Ensus – says the biomass power station would create 400 construction posts then 50 permanent and 50 supply chain jobs.

The Yarm-based company wants to build the wood-burning power plant on the site of a former conventional power station at the Billingham Reach Industrial Estate.

The news came as talks began to find a way of saving Corus’s steel plant in Redcar with the loss of nearly 2,000 jobs after a consortium of pulled out of a deal to buy 78% of the plant’s output for the next five years.

Business leaders, politicians and the regional development agency looked at options to stop the group of overseas steel buyers leaving including legal action for breaking a contract and to find work for the employees if the Teesside Cast Products plant had to be mothballed.

So news of the new power plant, powered by 275,000 tonnes of wood chips annually, gave further hope for Teesside. The site, which would produce 45MW of electricity per hour, meeting the energy needs of more than 80,000 homes, would be a major addition to Teesside’s strong renewable energy sector.

Gaia’s chairman Mr Fox said: “A full environmental impact assessment has been carried out. It seems to have been well received by the people we’ve been talking to. We have spoken to Stockton Borough Council at length. It seems to be hitting the right buttons.”