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industrial buildings special report
That temperature helps to keep emissions from the
factory down to a required level (important even though a sophisticated emissions control is in place.) The hot gases from the furnace heat water into steam to drive the turbine – which generates electricity headed for the transformer in Stowmarket to be distributed over the National Grid. The leftover “bottom ash”, which is more like clinker,
is taken on conveyor belts to be sorted and the final goodness is extracted from it: ferrous metals are removed with a magnet and taken for recycling. The remaining solid material is graded from pebble through to rock size and used as aggregate by local building companies. Even though the plant only opened in the autumn, the material sits under a road serving a new housing development in nearby Stowmarket. The finer (fly) ash is converted into aggregate for low-carbon building blocks. The water which turned the turbines, meanwhile, is turned
back into water in two condensers and goes through the process repeatedly. New water is drawn from the three ponds sited at the front of the project, which also adds to the envi- ronmental quality of the landscape. As well as the tree-planting and ponds on the new estate is
a 3/4 acre wild flower meadow, which will get up to full impact in a couple of years’ time.
BUILDING PROJECTS
www.architectsdatafile.co.uk Also to come is the plant’s heat-providing capacity.
At the moment, the heat taken out of the steam as it is condensed is not used for anything. However, the plant is CHP-enabled, so when a suitable project comes along, it can become fully efficient. Such sharing of energy is common in Europe and gaining traction in bigger cities. But, heat being hard to store, a project and a large one, would need to be nearby – and there’s not a whole lot else of sufficient size going on in the region. On the other hand, Suez is working with local agricultural
businesses to plan a vast complex of tomato greenhouses. If successful, the £30 million project would cover 50 acres and supply 7,500 tonnes of the “apple of love” to hungry UK markets. Suez is partnered with the County Council and The
Greenery, a regional distributor of salad produce. But, final go-ahead, along with 200 jobs, rests with the growers’ ability to fund the project. “We have played our part, but we are not horticulturists!”
says a spokesperson for Suez. In addition to this, SITA Trust provides funding for
community and environmental improvement projects within a three-mile radius of the site. So far 11 projects have received £240,000.
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