New £5.5m turbine

A new steam turbine, which has been hailed as one of the most efficient in the UK, is now officially open. Owned and operated by Tata Chemicals Europe, the new £5.5m turbine is housed at its Winnington CHP plant in Northwich, which is now one of the most efficient plants in the country capable of providing energy for 200,000 households – an area the size of Liverpool.

The project – backed by a £2.5m European Regional Growth Fund grant from the UK government – has taken two years to complete. It will help to provide energy for Tata Chemicals Europe’s sites across Cheshire, local businesses in the area, and also for the National Grid. The steam used to generate electricity is a by-product of industrial procedures at the Tata Chemical plant, effectively recapturing spent energy and reducing overall energy demands.

Generating this electricity means that this volume of electricity doesn’t have to be generated elsewhere on the grid – saving 71,000 tonnes of CO2 in the UK, and going a long way to help the Government meet decarbonisation requirements of a 75 per cent reduction by 2030. The Government is seeking to achieve nearly 60 per cent reductions in carbon emissions by 2030 – this type of initiative is a crucial part of making this happen.

Additionally, the project will improve Tata Chemicals’ Combined Heat & Power Quality Assurance (CHPQA), and the plant’s overall efficiency scores will rise.