STAFFS WASTE SITE SWITCHES ON TO GREEN ENERGY

Wyrley Grove ‘gas to electricity’ scheme comes on stream

Enough ‘green’ electricity to supply the needs of around 4,000 homes is being generated at a former Staffordshire landfill site and exported to the National Grid.

A landfill gas extraction system, installed across the Wyrley Grove site at Gorsey Lane, Pelsall, is collecting flammable gases from the buried waste and piping it to an on-site compound where it is fed into a power generation plant to create renewable energy.

The 10-acre site, which once served as the long-defunct Wyrley Grove Colliery washing pit, was used for landfill for industrial and commercial waste for 13 years until its closure in 2008.

It was operated by award-winning Hampshire-based waste management specialists Cleansing Service Group (CSG), which is currently carrying out a £1.5 million landscaping scheme to cover the site in trees, grass and native wildflowers and return it to nature as a wildlife and sheep-grazing area.

After it was finally sealed with plastic sheeting and buried under a metre of soil, a network of extraction pipes was laid across the site to carry the build-up of underground methane gas to a mini-power station where a sophisticated generator creates electricity which is fed into the local grid as renewable power.

CSG managing director Paul Quigley said: “Landfill gas created at well managed waste sites is a very useful source of sustainable energy and an economic way of effectively controlling a potentially hazardous by-product of waste disposal.

“Our power generation scheme at Wyrley Grove is now making a significant contribution to the National Grid while our ambitious landscaping will complete a total transformation of the area. What has been a brownfield site since the 1850s will be both environmentally-productive as well as an attractive haven for wildlife.”