Investment in a mini power station has gone ahead at Somerley, in the New Forest, while another project is starting in the north of the county at Bramshill, close to Yateley.
Both schemes are due to be up and running by the end of the year on the completed landfill sites. As restoration work continues, so the infrastructure for the recovery of the gas is constructed, extending to 1.5km of pipeline and some 30, ten metre deep gas wells in each case.
The next phase will be the installation of a Jenbacher V20 1,500hp engine at each site, complete with its own containerised unit, to use the gas fuel to generate electricity.
“Our on-going monitoring of all landfill sites will involve the burn off of gas to ensure that we have no gas migration,” reports Hampshire Waste Operations Director, Richard Bray. “Here, however, we are putting the gas for a purpose. As there is no nearby industry to benefit from the gas, we are puting it through the power plant to generate just under one megawatt of electricity at each site. This is exported to the National Grid and is sufficient in each case to supply electrical power to some 1,000 local homes.”
With the power generated by an existing plant at the Paulsgrove site near Porstmouth, this brings the total power generation from landfill gas in the county to four megawatts and the total investment in landfill power plants in Hampshire to £3.5 million.