Frequently Asked Questions

A. Boston Alternative Energy Facility is a state-of-the-art power generating plant that would generate approximately 102 MW of renewable energy. The process uses refuse derived fuel (RDF). RDF is made from UK household waste. It comprises the non-recyclable ‘residual’ waste that remains after the recyclable items have been separated out. Approximately 80 MW of the generated power will be exported to the national grid, with the remainder being used by the facility.

The facility will use advanced thermal treatment using energy from waste (EfW) to generate power, which is a well-established and efficient process to turn refuse derived fuel into energy.

Boston Alternative Energy Facility will contribute to the shortfall in the UK’s renewable energy capacity; and will also provide a sustainable management of the UK’s non-recyclable waste and divert significant quantity of waste from landfill.

Q. Who is AUBP?

A. Alternative Use Boston Projects Ltd (AUBP) is a privately-owned project delivery company.

AUBP’s core business is delivering renewable electricity projects producing “Green Energy”.

A. Royal Haskoning DHV is an independent, international engineering and project management consultancy with 135 years of experience. Backed by the expertise and experience of more than 6,000 colleagues worldwide, our professionals combine global expertise with local knowledge to deliver a multidisciplinary range of consultancy services for the entire living environment from over 150 countries.

Royal Haskoning DHV has experience of delivering the DCO for several national significant infrastructure projects recently.

Q. What is the appetite for an EfW plant of this size?

A. The UK Government is supportive of projects that use thermal treatment technology, including EfW. This is addressed in the Overarching National Policy Statement for Energy (EN-1) and the National Policy Statement for Renewable Energy Infrastructure (EN-3).

There is a national shortfall of renewable energy and the Boston Alternative Energy Facility will help fill that gap.

Currently, over three million tonnes of refuse derived fuel exported to Europe to facilities that generate power from it so the UK is not benefitting from this valuable resource. The Boston Alternative Energy Facility will be using this material to generate energy for the UK.

A briefing published in 2017 by the Environmental Services Association reported that by 2030 there will be more non-recyclable waste than the UK can deal with: there could be 6 m tonnes per year more waste than can be managed.

The UK is likely to fail to reach the 15% renewable energy target that it has set for 2020. Boston Alternative Energy Facility will be an important boost to the UK’s renewable energy production beyond the 2020 requirement.

Q. How many tonnes of material will be used to generate power?

A. The thermal treatment facility will generate power from approximately one million tonnes of processed refuse derived fuel.

Q. How much electricity will be created by the facility? Where/ How will this be used?

A. The facility will have a generating capacity of 102 Mega Watts (MW).

Some of this will be used to power the facility, leaving approximately 80 MW net to be exported into the grid for distribution by Western Power Distribution, the electricity utility provider in the region.

Q. Where will the grid connection be?

A. The grid connection will be on the site and the substation infrastructure that will enable the connection of the facility to the grid will be part of the plant on site. The location of the substation is currently planned to be in the southern part of the development. A site layout can be found in the Phase Three PID materials and on the project website.

Q. Where will the Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) / feedstock come from?

A. The source of the RDF will be from UK suppliers and comprise of Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) residues. This waste will be residual household waste and similar municipal-type waste that has been through the MRF and had all potential recyclate and contaminants (for example hazardous wastes) removed.

The waste that will be used is currently being exported; or is being sent to landfill, and so will not affect existing UK energy from waste facilities.

The material would be dispatched to the Facility from UK ports. The specific departure locations will be dictated by market conditions at the time of supply. All of the RDF that is transported to the Facility will come from UK sources. The material will be dispatched to the Facility from 12 UK ports. A list of potential ports has been identified as follows:

• Glasgow KGV
• Montrose
• Grangemouth
• Fleetwood
• Hartlepool
• Hull
• Great Yarmouth
• Ridham
• Sheerness
• Southampton
• Port Talbot and
• Belfast

Q. Will Boston Alternative Energy Facility take waste from Boston/Lincolnshire?

A. This is being considered. The EfW facility at North Hykeham is nearly at capacity, both Lincolnshire County Council and Boston Borough Council are looking at additional solutions for residual household waste. There is potential that Boston Alternative Energy Facility could offer a solution, subject to the waste meeting the required specification, and is something that we will discuss further with both authorities.

The Project Team and the local council and county council are also working on the potential to receive the residual household waste that is currently processed at the Slippery Gowt lane transfer station. This transfer station currently receives the green bin waste from Boston residents; and the black bag waste from South Holland residents. Currently, this waste is received at Slippery Gowt by bin lorry, bulked up, then driven by lorry to the incinerator at North Hykeham near Lincoln.

The proposed Boston Alternative Energy Facility could take this material as long as it is baled and wrapped in plastic before transfer to prevent odour. This would be subject to agreement with the relevant councils and the Developer. If this was to be received, it would reduce the impact of lorry movements going from the transfer station at Slippery Gowt to North Hykeham.

Q. If you are using this technology to dispose of household waste, won’t this discourage people from recycling?

A. No.

Householders already are required to segregate the dry recyclables from the residual waste that cannot be recycled. This is common practice across the UK. We will not stop this from happening.

The residual waste stream which is often referred to as ‘black bag waste’ contains materials that cannot be recycled; because they cannot be recycled or because they are contaminated (e.g. with food or labelling).

We will not be accepting the waste that has been segregated for recycling by the householder.

Q. Will the EfW facility be able to process hazardous waste?

A. No, the facility will not be able to process hazardous waste. The only type of waste the Facility will be receiving will be refuse derived fuel to be used as fuel. The Facility will not receive any hazardous waste for use in generating power in the EfW plant, nor any other non-hazardous waste for this purpose other than RDF.

Q. Will the facility operate 24/7?

A. Yes, with planned maintenance cycles. Each of the three EfW lines will run for 8000 hours per year (approximately 333 days).

Q. What is the proposed lifespan of the Facility?

A. It is intended to operate for 25 years (minimum), after which the performance will be reviewed in line with operational standards at the time. This will inform whether the facility will continue to operate or will need to be upgraded; or decommissioned.

Q. How many homes could be powered with electricity?

A. More than 206,000 houses, which is equivalent to over 66% of all of the houses in Lincolnshire.

Q. What is the likely height of the stack compared with the newly constructed biomass facility?

A. Boston Biomass plc stack is 45m high (although the original plan for this facility had consent for a 65m stack).

The Facility’s highest structures will be the exhaust stacks for each of the three EfW lines and the two proposed Lightweight Aggregates plant stacks which are each anticipated to be approximately 70m.

There will be three identical EfW plant, each with one stack. The main EfW building is likely to be approximately 35 metres tall and 44 metres at its tallest point.

There will also be two stacks for the lightweight aggregates facility.

There are numerous tall structures in the area, such as masts and pylons, and a stack for the Boston wood gasification facility.

A. Extensive investigations have been carried out to assess each environmental topic in line with the indicative design of the site. This will identify legislative and good practice requirements to ensure that the facility would not cause any unacceptable adverse effects. These measures will evolve as investigations and surveys are carried out.

The facility will not be able to operate without an environmental permit, which will ensure that human health and the environment is protected by the operating procedures that will be implemented at the site.

Q. What are you going to do about emissions and odour?

A. The refuse derived fuel (RDF) is not anticipated to cause odour because it will be tightly wrapped in plastic to form the bales. Most of the bales will be immediately transferred by conveyor from the ships to a shredder facility, which will split the bales open and the loose RDF will be transferred into a bunker. The shredding building and bunker building are sealed. Some bales will be stored outside if the bunker is full. However, these will only be stored for a short period of time (up to four days) before it is transferred to the shredder.

If a bale is damaged whilst in transit or whilst transferred from ship to storage or the bunker, it will be immediately re-baled and wrapped. This will take place in a sealed building to prevent odour.

Odour will be generated when RDF bales are split open in the shredder and stored in the bunker. However, the bale shredder and bunker will not smell from the outside. These buildings will be under negative pressure which will stop odour from escaping. This means that if a door is opened, air will flow in rather than potentially odorous air flowing out. Furthermore, the building’s ventilation system will ensure that the odorous air will be removed from this building and will be transferred into the thermal treatment unit to effectively destroy the odour.

It is important to note that all odour management systems and technology will have to be proven to be operating in accordance with ‘Best Available Techniques’, otherwise consent will not be granted to build the Facility; and the Environment Agency will not grant an environmental permit for the operation of the Facility.”

Q. Will it be very noisy?

A. Detailed noise and vibration assessments have been carried out based upon the range of infrastructure that is planned to be within the plant to identify what the noise characteristics of the site will be. The potential noise levels have been compared to the required baseline noise levels and this information will be used to identify noise limits for the facility. These noise limits would be set by the local authority and the project team will be working with them to discuss the potential mitigation measures that may be required to manage any operation that could cause unacceptable noise.

The facility will have comply with these strict noise limits to ensure that it will not cause unacceptable noise or vibration to those nearby.

Q. Will the construction adversely affect wildlife and ecology?

A. A Construction Environmental Management Plan will specify how construction will be carried out to minimise environmental and health impacts. This will be informed by detailed assessment to identify the appropriate mitigation measures to ensure that the facility would not cause any unacceptable adverse ecological effects during both construction and operation.

These measures will evolve as investigations and surveys are carried out.

The facility will not be able to operate without an environmental permit, which will ensure that health and the environment is protected by the site’s operating procedures.

Q. How will emissions be controlled?

A. Emissions must be tightly controlled. The facility will not receive consent to be built, nor an environmental permit to operate, unless it can be demonstrated that the best available techniques are being used to ensure that all emissions are below the required standards that are set in law.

Waste gases generated in the thermal treatment process will be treated inside the plant before being emitted to the atmosphere. There will be a continuous emissions monitoring system installed which will make sure that these limits are consistently being complied with.

Q. I live opposite the proposed site – what will you be doing to mitigate visual impact?

A. There will be some viewpoints that will be negatively impacted by the proposed development. This is inevitable given the type of facility that is proposed.

A detailed visual assessment has been carried out to identify where the visual impacts will be most significant in accordance with the indicative design of the site. These measures will evolve as investigations and surveys are carried out. However, the site is in an area already used by industry and will be adjacent to an existing waste wood gasification facility, so the new facility will be in context with what is already there; and will also be in line with what the site has been allocated for in the Lincolnshire Minerals and Waste Local Plan – Site Allocations (2017).

In the next phase prior to submission, we will be exploring the potential for landscaping and screening of the Facility, using trees and hedging. This will have to follow the general character of the area and the Policy requirements of the Local Plan.

A. There is a 132 kV connection at the site which will allow the Boston Alternative Energy Facility to generate power for the grid.

This, combined with the riverside location that allows receipt of material by ship and the allocation of the site for industrial development in the Lincolnshire Minerals and Waste Local Plan means that the site is ideal.

Q. What are the economic benefits to Boston?

A. The facility will not only create more jobs for the people of Boston, but it will also help to provide greater economic resilience for Boston through diversification of industry during construction and operation. It will also provide additional revenue to the Port as the refuse derived fuel will arrive via ship.

Further investment opportunities will develop through the consenting process.

Q. How many jobs will it create?

A. The facility will create around 80 jobs, of varying skill levels.

The construction process will employ approximately 300 people.

Q. How much traffic will there be when the facility is operational?

A. The impact of the construction and operation of the facility upon the local road network has been assessed by a Transport study that is required with the environmental information to accompany the Development Consent Order (DCO) application. The construction traffic demand has been determined and assessed with input from industry expertise; and further assessment work will be carried out to identify the impacts associated with the significant reduction in traffic due to the proposed changes to the scheme.

Operational road traffic is expected to comprise delivery of raw materials; commuting workforce; and small quantities of segregated ferrous metals from the ash.

Q. Will you be offering apprenticeships?

A. Yes, this is something we will be looking at once consent has been given.

We have consulted with Boston College and they are excited by the potential for the project to align with their future plans for apprenticships at the College. We will continue this relationship as the project progresses through the consenting phase.

A. We expect construction to start within six months of DCO consent being granted. Some early phases of construction could start almost immediately, subject to the terms of the consent.

Q. How long will construction take?

A. Around 48 months

Q. How much traffic would there be during construction?

A. The PEIR included an initial assessment of the impact of traffic during construction and operations. The assessment considered 12 sections of routes and was informed through desktop studies, site visits, consultation with stakeholders and traffic surveys.

The potential impact was modelled based on daily and annual average usage. When considered on an annual average basis, construction traffic will not have a significant impact on local traffic levels at any of the 12 sections.

However, based on daily average data, there were several periods during the first two years of construction where HGV traffic travelling to the Facility will increase substantially at eight of the 12 route sections with Nursery Road/Lealand Way being most impacted. The main factor causing this increase is the large-scale delivery of cement to site for construction.

Changes have been considered to reduce this impact, for example having a concrete batching plant on site for the construction period and also delivering raw materials by ship during the construction period. These measures will significantly reduce the amount of construction vehicle movements and the impact of this will be assessed during the next phase of the assessment process.

Mitigation measures will also be secured through commitments contained in a Construction Traffic Management Plan. This will specify which routes must be followed to access the site for all visiting lorries; and appropriate access times outside of peak traffic hours on the routes in.

Further mitigation of these impacts will be developed as part of the Environmental Statement process.

Q. How will you stop construction traffic using smaller roads?

A. Yes, that is the plan.

There will be a Construction Traffic Management Plan (CTMP) that will define the number of deliveries to site during the construction period and will also identify the routes that construction vehicles must take. There are means to enforce routes to and from site by using GPS tracking of vehicles used during construction and enforcing a penalty system for operators who fail to adhere to the CTMP.

Q. What impact will the Wharf have upon the River Witham in terms of flow and silt build up? Will there be subsequent erosion of river banks by the wash from vessels?

A. We have carried out an assessment of the sediment transport processes in the River and how this will be affected by the scheme. The outcome of the assessment there are no significant impacts aon marine sediment and water quality for both the construction and operational phase.

Q. What impact will there be for the Port and the fishing fleet?

A. The impact of these vessels on the current usage of the Haven will be assessed in a Navigational risk assessment.

This will identify whether there are any significant negative impacts and if so, what mitigation measures will be required to be implemented.

The assessment will be undertaken in consultation with key stakeholders in the area and take each of their views into account individually, including the Port of Boston, the local fishing fleet and other river users to appropriately and proportionately assess the significance of potential impacts.

Q. When vessels are moored at the Wharf will there be sufficient navigable channel width for boats to/ from the Port to get past?

A. Yes, this will be factored in to the designs of the wharf

Q. What is the turn around time for vessels?

A. Vessels will arrive on high tide and depart on next high tide.

Q. What will happen to the plastic wrapping around the bales?

A. Plastic is shredded along with the RDF bales in the feedstock processing facility

Q. How long is “temporary” storage? How long will RDF material be stored on site?

A. The anticipated maximum is seven days.

Q. What steps are in place to ensure loose waste isn’t blown away?

A. The refuse derived fuel will arrive by ship in bales, which will be tightly contained by a thick plastic wrapping. This wrap will prevent any loose material and odour from escaping and is strong enough to cope with unloading and stockpiling.

Any bales that have been damaged during shipping or whilst placed in storage will be treated by re-baling on site and placed in a stockpile prior to transfer to the bunker.

Q. If most of the site is expected to be hard standing, what happens to surface water run off during construction, operation or decommissioning?

This will be controlled. There will be a surface water management plan to determine the most effective way of managing surface water safely.

Surface water during construction will be retained on site for use in the lightweight aggregates Facility.

A. Four phases of consultation have been held to obtain people’s views on the Boston Alternative Energy Facility proposals.

Where possible, we have addressed the points raised throughout the consultation. Feedback summaries have been produced after each phase of consultation and these can be viewed in the Document Library.

Comments raised during each phase of consultation have been recorded and have been included in the Consultation Report which formed part of the Development Consent Order (DCO) application. This document is available to view on the PINS website and also in our Document Library.

We will continue to update interested parties as the project progresses and to post updates on this website.

Q. How have you consulted with local councils?

A. Local councils have been consulted with at all stages of the consultation. The Statement of Community Consultation and the Updated Statement of Community Consultation were shared with Lincolnshire County Council, Boston Borough Council, South Holland District Council, South Kesteven District Council, North Kesteven District Council and East Lindsey District Council. Councils were given the chance to provide comments on these documents before final versions were published.

Boston Borough Council, a statutory consultee within whose jurisdiction the proposed project is situated, has attended a number of briefing meetings offered by the project team and given feedback on the evolving proposals. Statutory consultees, such as local councils in the vicinity of the project, have been given opportunities at each phase of consultation to make comments and share their views.

Representations made by local council throughout the consultation process have been recorded and taken into account where possible as the scheme progresses. However, the final decision on planning consent for the project will be made by the Secretary of State.

We continue to engage with both Boston Borough Council and Lincolnshire County Council as well as a wide range of other consultees.