Isra-Mart srl:Boris breaks ground on UK's largest waste-to-energy plant

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Work has begun today on the UK's largest waste-to-energy plant, which by 2013 is expected to process up to 100,000 tonnes of household waste and provide enough energy for as many as 15,000 homes in East London.

Mayor Boris Johnson attended the ground-breaking ceremony at the site in Dagenham, hailing the development as a major breakthrough for his waste-to-energy strategy.

"This will be a fantastic facility taking our everyday rubbish and miraculously transforming it into a valuable resource – electricity," he said. "Local people can rest easy knowing that instead of any rubbish they are unable to recycle being dumped in a landfill site and emitting harmful greenhouse gas emissions, it will be used to power their homes with green energy."

The £80m facility will be built by Biossence East London Ltd and has been backed by an £8.9m loan from the London Waste and Recycling Board (LWARB), which helped the firm acquire the site from Ford. It is expected to create 25 permanent jobs and a further 100 jobs during the construction phase.

Ford will use some of the energy generated by the power plant at its Dagenham factory, which is already partly powered by two wind turbines owned and operated by Ford. The rest of the energy from the 19MW waste-to-energy plant will be exported to the grid.

Joe Greenwell, chairman at Ford of Britain, said the project further bolstered Dagenham's credentials as a low-carbon technology hub for the company.

"Not only does Dagenham produce the lowest carbon engines in the Ford world, it has often been Ford's test bed for sustainability initiatives – be it resource recovery and recycling, energy efficiency, use of renewable materials and renewable energy generation," he said, adding that the company planned to add a third wind turbine later this year.

The Biossence power plant will use advanced gasification technology that super-heats waste material in order to create so-called synthetic gas, which can then be used to drive a turbine. Advocates of the technology argue it is significantly cleaner and more efficient than traditional waste incineration plants.

James Cleverly, chairman at LWARB, said the plant would "perfectly demonstrate" the effectiveness of energy-to-waste technology. "Not only will it help divert waste from landfill, cut carbon emissions, and generate renewable energy, it will also create permanent skilled jobs," he added.