The Energos gasification plant: early performance assessment

As one of the Defra-funded advanced thermal treatment demonstration technologies, the gasification/oxidation plant on the Isle of Wight started operation in December 2008. As a requirement of the demonstrator project the plant was subjected to an independent assessment of its performance. This paper is based on the report of that assessment, undertaken by AEA Technology and provides an overview of the early operation of the plant in respect of its performance, availability, reliability and maintainability. The period of monitoring spanned the early operation of the plant. The new gasification technology has been retrofitted into a former waste incinerator. Much of the existing energy recovery and pollution abatement equipment downstream of the combustion chamber has been retained, which has resulted in lower than optimal efficiency and availability. During the monitoring period a number of significant unplanned and protracted outages occurred, largely, but not exclusively related to the legacy pollution abatement and energy recovery equipment.