The North Lincolnshire Green Energy Park (NLGEP) has been granted a Development Consent Order (DCO) by the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero.
Located in the Flixborough Industrial Estate in North Lincolnshire, the NLGEP will feature an Energy Recovery Facility designed to divert up to 760,000 tonnes of waste from landfills each year. Instead, this waste—both household and commercial—will be used to generate low-carbon energy, supplying power to more than 221,000 homes.
The NLGEP will also include a plastic recycling facility, where waste plastics will be cleaned, sorted, and processed for reuse in new products.
A significant factor behind this decisions was a DEFRA report published in December, which began ‘Our current use of resources is economically, environmentally and socially unsustainable and we are determined to transition to a circular economy in the UK’.
The report emphasised the need for additional waste processing capacity as an alternative to landfill, a role that NLGEP will fill.
The NLGEP will harness electricity generated from the energy recovery process to produce low-carbon hydrogen through electrolysis. This hydrogen can serve as a clean fuel for transport, support industrial processes, or be injected into the gas network to aid in decarbonizing energy supplies. The site will also feature energy storage solutions, including batteries and hydrogen storage. Additionally, heat and energy generated through energy recovery and carbon capture will be supplied to local homes and businesses via a district heat network.
The project is expected to create up to 257 new jobs, above and beyond around 600 jobs that will be created during during the construction phase. There will also be 100 new apprenticeships, postgraduate research opportunities, and retraining initiatives to develop skills for a net-zero economy.
A new visitor centre will be dedicated to educating children and adults on how to live a more sustainable life. The project will also enhance local biodiversity through new wetland habitats and woodland corridors, while providing new walking and cycling routes for the local community to enjoy.
Colin Hammond from North Lincolnshire Green Energy Park Ltd said: ‘Decarbonising our waste industry and making the best use of our resources are two of the most important challenges of our times. The North Lincolnshire Green Energy Park is a pioneering project that will meet these challenges head on and support the UK’s journey to net zero.
‘We’re bringing together proven technologies in an innovative way to recover energy from waste and use as many of the by-products as possible. This is the circular economy in action. It’s been a long journey to get to this point, but this decision will truly put the region on the map as leading the green revolution.”