Anglesey Aluminium submits plans for £600m power plant

ANGLESEY Aluminium has now formally submitted plans to the UK government to build a £600m power plant which could create 700 jobs. Last week, the company revealed they had put in plans for 300 Mega Watt wood burning furnaces at their Penrhos site to the government’s Department of Energy. If passed, 100 permanent jobs would be created. The construction phase could create 600 short term jobs. The company held a public consultation at Holyhead Town Hall where they launched the details of an environment impact assessment that has been authored by PB Power. The assessment says that the renewable energy plant will operate in full compliance with the requirements of an Environmental Permit from the Environment Agency. The report states: "Using a cleaner fuel and process than a comparable thermal plant running on coal or recycled wood means the potential for emissions are greatly reduced." John Mervyn Jones of Anglesey Aluminium said: "The application was submitted to the Department of Energy on September 1 and we have now started the consultation process with all parties, such as Anglesey County Council, the Environment Agency and Countryside Council for Wales and expect to have their comments back early next year. "We've had quite a few coming in to see the details of the environmental impact assessment, this is the only real difference to our first public consultation in June where we unveiled the plans to build the biomass plant. "Around 2.2m tonnes of timber from Canada down to Savannah in the USA would be shipped to Anglesey Aluminium’s deep dock in Holyhead. "This would mean around 60 ships a year. This is an increase as we usually have one ship berthing a month at the moment. "We know about the work that is going on to use our jetty as a berth for cruise ships and we feel that we can live together. There is enough room for two ships to berth at the same time at the jetty." On Wednesday, September 30, nearly 400 workers at the smelter were made redundant as the cheap electricity deal to power the smelting lines ran out. This leaves around 80 workers at the site to work on re-melting operations. Anglesey Aluminium energy manager Richard Roberts said: "It’s been very eerie and surreal there for those of us who are left. It’s very sad. "Those who are still working on the smelting lines have not been around much either as they are receiving training for the re-melting operation."