Supporting the Development of Tees Renewable Energy Plant

The £650m plant produces up to 2.4TWh of electricity a year – sufficient to continually power 600,000 domestic homes, which is equivalent to annually displacing 1.2Mt of CO₂ emissions.

The plant uses modern circulating fluidised bed technology for power generation and the wood pellets and chips required to fuel the plant are supplied from registered certified sustainable forestry sources in low-risk areas. The chips are offloaded by a conveyer via ship and stored in silos with automatic fuel retrieval and delivery systems to the boiler house. The project uses a range of environmentally controlled measures.

Challenge

The “Owner’s Engineer” relationship with the Engineer, Procure and Construct (EPC) Contractor had the potential to create challenges due to the scrutiny given to the emerging design. To mitigate this, we established early engagement with the EPC Contractor’s designers and worked to understand their intent as well as technical issues we expected to see addressed in the design. 

A significant amount of the EPC Contractor’s design was carried out outside of the UK and we worked closely to ensure compliance with UK standards and regulations. 

Solution

We supported MGT Teeside Ltd (MGT) to discharge pre-commencement planning conditions as well as specified and managed geotechnical and geo-environmental investigations on site. 

We also provided expert technical support during the EPC contract tendering process. The technical performance specifications we produced for the building and civil were used to define the Employer’s Requirements. To ensure a detailed understanding of this, and the associated design intent, we worked closely with MGT to scrutinise all tenders. 

Following this, we acted as Owner’s Engineer for the building and civil works, reviewing the EPC Contractor’s designs and inspecting the quality of construction.