Beckton Sewage Treatment Works 6MWe CHP plant

Edina 6MWe CHP powers one of Europe’s largest Sewage Treatment Works at Beckton

Thames Water appointed Tamesis – a Joint Venture of Imtech Process and Laing O’Rourke, to deliver and coordinate the development of renewable energy schemes at Beckton Sewage Treatment Works (STW) to include anaerobic digestion aimed at increasing the capacity to treat sewage during heavy rainfall and the growth in population capacity by 400,000 to almost 4 million people.

Based in east London, Beckton STW currently serves a population of approximately 3.5million people and is recognised as one of the largest STWs in Europe.

Following the appointment of the 6MWe combined heat and power (CHP) installation at neighbouring Crossness Sewage Treatment Works, Edina were awarded the contract to supply and install an additional CHP plant at Beckton STW.

As part of an on-going development programme, Thames Water appointed Tamesis (a Joint Venture of Imtech Process and Laing O’Rourke), to co-ordinate the project at Crossness Sewage Treatment Works.

Project benefits

When combined with the adjacent Crossness STW installation, the 12MWe CHP plants will produce enough electricity to power 24,000 homes. The engine jacket water heat will be used for digester heating with the exhaust fed to waste heat boilers for steam production to assist the advanced digestion process. These gensets habitually operate at an overall efficiency in excess of 85 per cent with uptime of >92 per cent.

The MWM gas engines were containerised in-house at Edina’s manufacturing facility in Lisburn, North Ireland and included all ancillary equipment, expediting installation, commissioning and reducing project costs.