Tuesday, 6th October, 2020
Cory Riverside Energy announces major operational upgrade
Cory Riverside Energy (Cory) has today announced the completion of a major upgrade of its energy from waste facility in Belvedere, East London.
The improvement works, which were carried out between April and August 2020, included measures to improve the reliability of the boilers and the associated tubing as they neared the end of their service life. This will have the overall benefit of improving the efficiency of the facility and helping Cory to continue to provide a reliable service to its customers.
During the upgrade period, additional measures were put in place to keep workers safe, such as social distancing measures and a one-way system throughout the facility.
In total, six superheater 3 modules and six superheater 4 modules have been replaced across the three process lines at the Riverside facility, along with over 1500m2 of Inconel 625 overlay which was installed. Over one thousand safety documents have also been issued, with work to finalise the comprehensive electrical resilience plan for the facility also carried out.
The superheater modules were procured by Hitachi Zosen Inova & manufactured in Croatia and Russia, before being shipped to the UK by sea and installed by PJD Engineering. To install the modules, a major operation was planned which required significant modification to the building to allow the modules to be lowered through the roof of the facility whilst working to ensure minimal disruption to Cory’s day-to-day operations. The lifting element of the project was delivered by Ainscough Crane Hire, using a 750-tonne mobile crane.
Work was also carried out to improve the electrical resilience of the facility. This included:
- Improvements to the air conditioning in the battery room to maximise the life of the batteries
- Modifying the DC system for additional redundancy, which allows electricity to be distributed with greater ease and flexibility, extending to 400% redundancy on the capacity of the DC battery packs
- Installing an additional AC battery system to back up the steam turbine AC lubrication oil pump.
David Crawford, Plant Manager at Cory Riverside Energy said:
This year has been an interesting one to date, and one in which we have faced several operational challenges. However, we have been able to overcome these and significantly upgrade the operations of our energy from waste facility, all whilst navigating the additional restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic. We’re incredibly proud of the role that we play in managing London’s residual waste, which has become even more critical in recent months.
These upgrades will help us to rise to the challenge of transforming non-recyclable waste into low carbon, baseload energy to power London’s homes. Thank you to all the team members at Cory who made this possible, as well as our service providers who have supported us through this challenging year.
We’re incredibly proud of the role that we play in managing London’s residual waste, which has become even more critical in recent months.