Located in Essex, east of London, the plant will exhaust its operating hours allocated under the EU’s Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD) by the end of 2013 and unless it secures the re-licensing, will have to shut operations.
The plant had been converted from coal-fired power one into a biomass station in January 2012 and RWE is looking to re-license it as a biomass plant now, to extend its lifetime by a minimum of 10 years, reported Reuters.
RWE npower spokeswoman remarked, "With the viewpoint that we are going to run out (of allocated hours), it’s important that we start making those planning (applications) now so that the county council and the Environment Agency can determine them and then we can look at that plant moving forward post closure under LCPD"
The re-licensing process is expected to take about nine months to complete.
