£140m Newport power plant to bring 200 jobs

Nevis Power Limited won permission to build the plant at Alexandra Docks in 2009, but work will finally begin in April or May after banking group Santander yesterday signed a partnership agreement with owner Welsh Power Group Limited.

Construction is expected to take around two years with everything up and running by June 2014.

It will employ 30 permanent workers in technical, administration and managerial jobs.

Once completed, the carbon neutral plant, will burn up to 370,000 tonnes of wood chip, fruit-based biomass and energy crops a year, to supply 47 megawatts of electricity a year, powering 50,000 homes.

The 12-acre site will accommodate a plant the length of two rugby pitches, as well as offices, a high voltage substation, water treatment plant, an effluent treatment plant, water storage and a four-metre high noise barrier along the boundary with the River Ebbw.

EDITORIAL COMMENT: Jobs are welcome

GIVEN the current economic climate it’s pleasing to learn 200 construction jobs will be created in Newport in the spring. A £140 million pound power plant will be built at Alexandra Docks.

It’s certainly an impressive project. The 12-acre site will have a plant the length of two rugby pitches as well as offices, a high-voltage sub station and water treatment plant.

It will burn up to 370,000 tonnes of wood chip, fruit-based biomass and energy crops a year, to supply enough power for 50,000 homes. Work is expected to take around two years and the plant should be open June 2014.

It will then employ 30 permanent workers in a range of technical, administration and managerial jobs.

Not only does this, on the face of it, look like the kind of renewable energy project that could become the norm in providing us with power in the future, but the jobs it provides will be most welcome.

As the gloomy economic predictions continue, anything that provides jobs, and especially in the construction industry, has to be welcome.