E.ON UK to Build Carbon Neutral Power Station

E.ON UK is to offer to create a landmark piece of artwork for Sheffield and plans to build a carbon neutral power station in the city.

The company has revealed that it has put aside a substantial sum to create a new piece of artwork and also hopes to build a 25MW biomass plant on the site of the old Blackburn Meadows power station.

The new station, which could cost £55m to build, would burn a combination of recycled wood and specially grown crops such as willow and elephant grass.

If built, it would prevent the emission of around 80,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year (the equivalent of taking around 20,000 cars off Britain's roads every year), produce enough power for around 40,000 homes and create 25 full-time jobs.

Derek Parkin, Managing Director of Business Services at E.ON UK, said: "We believe that these plans are fantastic news for Sheffield - the chance to create a permanent, landmark piece of art and also a state-of-the-art green generation project that can bring investment and jobs to the area.

"We'll hopefully be able to bring the Blackburn Meadows site back into use and also to create a landmark piece of artwork somewhere in the city that local people can have input into.

"And, while we've been working with Channel 4's Big Art Project on a temporary piece of art based around the existing cooling towers at the site, we now feel that a permanent piece would be more appropriate.

"Our only caveat is that the artwork has to have 'energy' as its theme, apart from that, the sky's the limit."

The company has already begun discussions with Sheffield City Council on both projects and is also currently working with the Highways Agency to find a date to demolish the existing cooling towers.

"We even looked at the possibility of using the towers for the biomass station but, from an engineering point of view, they simply weren't suitable," said Derek.

Those towers were once part of the Blackburn Meadows Power Station and the motorway was built around them when the power station was still operational in the 1960s.

When the station was demolished in the 1980s, the towers were left standing as engineers at the time did not have the expertise to bring them down safely without compromising the integrity of the M1 viaduct.

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Posted 20/06/07

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