Holbrook Biomass

Holbrook was developed on a brownfield site by Equitix – an infrastructural investment company – and began generating low carbon heat and power in the spring of 2017. In 2019, px Group secured a contract to operate and maintain the facility. The site has 14 permanent px Group employees, along with a number of additional contractor services for management of the plant.

At a Glance

• The 6.5MWe biomass fired combined heat and power station is designed to provide CO2 savings of over 210,000 Tonnes over the project life. 
• The renewable energy generated is equivalent to that used to power about 12,000 homes.
• The plant uses around 55,000 tonnes of waste wood per year that may have traditionally gone to landfill.
• The biomass fuel is burned in two water cooled WID compliant moving grate furnaces working independently of each other to supply up to 30MWth heat in a closed loop thermal oil system within the associated boiler units for use in the generation of the site electricity.
• The technology used for generating electricity is based on an organic rankine cycle thermodynamic process, which allows useful energy to be recovered at much lower operating temperatures than conventional steam turbine systems.

Under the contract, px Group took on responsibility for the operations and maintenance, performance, emission monitoring and ash disposal from the site, as well as managing the biomass fuel on site. The contract supported the px Group strategy to grow their footprint in green energy with partners around the UK. 

The transition from the original operator to px Group taking over operations took place less than 2 months after initial discussions began, demonstrating px’s agility in supporting the needs of our clients.  An interim Plant Manager was brought in straight away and recruitment quickly took place to fill other roles in the site team.  Significant support from px Group’s HQ functions ensured a smooth transition.  px Group focused on getting the plant on line as quickly as possible to start generating MWhs and securing Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs) and is now proactively working with OEM and EPC contractors to maximise the efficiency and performance of the plant.