WORK began yesterday on a pioneering £60m power plant which will generate enough electricity to power 30,000 homes.
SembCorp Utilities UK, based on Teesside, has started construction on Wilton 10, a green power plant which uses wood as its fuel source.
The company and its main construction and engineering contractor, Foster Wheeler, marked the occasion with a groundbreaking ceremony at the site, at Wilton International, on Teesside, yesterday.
The largest biomass project of its kind in the UK, Wilton 10 is expected to be operational by the middle of 2007.
SembCorp's managing director, Paul Gavens, said: "This is a tremendous and momentous occasion for SembCorp, the Wilton International site and the whole of the Tees Valley area.
"We will be generating much-needed energy from a non-fossil fuel product, helping the UK to reduce overall greenhouse emissions in the process.
"Construction of the new plant will be a massive task and our first priority is to complete the job safely with no injuries or accidents to our employees or contractors."
About 15 permanent SembCorp jobs will be created at the plant, with construction work involving up to 400 jobs.
The plant will burn 40 per cent recycled wood. Another 20 per cent will come from sawmill offcuts and a further 20 per cent from the Forestry Commission's North-East forests. That wood will come in the form of small logs, which are often left spare after trees are cut down. The final 20 per cent will come from willow coppice crops grown by landowners across the North-East and North Yorkshire
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