Rolton Kilbride’s Northampton Community Energy Scheme has featured in the March issue of Future Power Technology.
The article provides a detailed overview of the proposed scheme, which would see an energy from waste plant in the centre of Northampton providing cheaper heat and power to local high-energy-using businesses, and potentially providing nearby homes with cheaper heat, with profits being reinvested back into the local community. The plant would make use of the non-recyclable waste from the county which is left over once any recyclable material has been removed, and would convert this refuse into power and heat through a clean-tech Advanced Conversion Technology (ACT) process called gasification.
If the proposals are approved, the local authority could also see significant savings, of as much as £50 per tonne on the price of disposing non-recyclable waste, due to the lower costs of sending the refuse to the energy plant rather than to landfill.
The Northampton Community Energy Scheme is currently unique in the way it would combine the energy from waste plant with a not-for-profit Community Interest Company (CIC), Caring Community Energy Co. The CIC would buy the power and heat from the energy plant at wholesale price and then offer it to local businesses for cheaper rates than offered by the National Grid. Any profits would then be reinvested into local energy projects, to improve the built environment in Northampton.
On Tuesday evening (1st March) Colin Banyard, co-founder of Rolton Kilbride, attended the Far Cotton Residents Meeting with the emissions and traffic assessors from Rolton Kilbride’s planning team, alongside an independent facilitator, Margaret Bates, Professor of Sustainable Waste Management at the University of Northampton. Residents had the opportunity to ask questions to all of the guests and receive answers about how the proposed scheme would operate, what benefits they would receive and how the issues of traffic and air quality would be addressed and managed.
The formal consultation process will begin with a drop-in information event at the Doddridge Centre in St. James, Northampton, on the 6th April from 2PM – 8PM.
You can read the article in full by following the link and clicking under the ‘Keep it Local’ section: http://www.nridigital.com/future-power-magazine.html
