Mine gas to be used for electricity generation

Up to 25 years¹ supply of mine gas from the former colliery workings at Trentham Lakes, Stoke-on-Trent, is to be extracted for generating up to four megawatts of electricity into the national grid, equivalent to supplying 4,000 homes.

Stoke-on-Trent Regeneration Ltd, the joint venture partnership between St Modwen Properties PLC and Stoke City Council, developers of the 400-acre Trentham Lakes – Stoke¹s premier business park – has granted a lease to Chesterfield-based Greenpark Energy, for the construction of an electricity generating plant to be fuelled by the mine gas.

Since the colliery closed in the 1990s the mineshafts have been releasing gas into the atmosphere and this is estimated to continue for up to 25 years.

Mine gas typically contains some 70% methane which is significantly more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide.

Extracting and utilising mine gas will have two benefits:

* Make use of an energy resource which otherwise would be lost to the atmopshere.

* Prevent some 240 million cubic metres of methane adding to the greenhouse effect.

Greenpark Energy will extract the gas currently vented to the atmosphere within the residential area on Trentham Lakes via an underground pipeline, part of which St Modwen has already installed when it delivered the residential sites to prevent subsequent dislocation to local residents, to the generating plant on Stanley Matthew Way.

Greenpark Energy has begun construction work on the site, which is planned to be operational later this year.

Euan Lindsay, development manager of Stoke-on-Trent Regeneration, said:

³Environmental reponsibility is at the heart of our business. The securing of the use of the mine gas at Trentham Lakes is very pleasing indeed because it prevents the release of significant greenhouse emissions and utilises a readily available energy resource.²

George Giard, chief executive officer of Greenpark Energy, said: ³We are pleased to launch this four megawatt power generation project in collaboration with Stoke-on-Trent Regeneration. Trentham Lakes residents will now enjoy both a safer environment and a secure domestic source of electricity for many years to come.²

For further information contact Euan Lindsay (01782 281844) or Bob Humphreys, Project Director, Greenpark Energy (01246 208001). Issued by Paul Raymer of Howle Chapman Raymer (0121 236 7771).