CGI Reveals How New Circular Fuels Ltd Renewable Plant Will Look

First images of a ground-breaking low carbon plant to be built at Teesworks have been unveiled.

Circular Fuels Ltd have lined up a cutting-edge fuel-from-waste facility for land at Dorman Point – with 250 construction jobs and more than 50 skilled roles in the offing, and dozens more indirect jobs to come from the feedstock supply and fuels offtake supply chain.

When it’s fully up and running, the £150million plant will be able to produce 50,000 tonnes of fuel per year from non-recyclable household and industry waste by converting it into a safe, cost-effective, and clean burning fuel.

This renewable fuel – called renewable and recycled carbon dimethyl ether (DME) – has similar properties to LPG and can be stored in cylinders and tanks. This means it can serve properties not connected to the national gas grid, which are often some of the hardest to decarbonise.

Images and a fly through show the scale of the plant which will sit on a 14-acre site on the 140-acre Dorman Point area. It will also be carbon capture ready so, when established, it has the potential to link into Net Zero Teesside that is being spearheaded by bp, and the wider CCUS infrastructure.

Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen said: “This commercial-scale plant is another cutting-edge facility coming to the Teesworks site. Thousands of good-quality, well-paid green jobs are on their way and this project underlines our efforts to make Teesside a green engine to power the country’s Net Zero ambitions.

“We’re already home to schemes developing ways to decarbonise homes on the national gas grid and bold and ambitious projects like this are vital to produce low-carbon fuel for the off-grid heating sector.

“These plans show that our vision to make Teesside a leader in industries of the future is well and truly becoming a reality – Teesworks will be a trailblazer in creating homegrown energy and well-paid jobs for the people of Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool.”

Kamal Kalsi, Managing Director of Circular Fuels Limited, said: “We are at an exciting stage of bringing the first waste-to-DME plant in the UK to reality at Teesworks. There is an urgent need to providing affordable energy to those off-grid homes and businesses who need it most and have little to no other alternative and to enhancing our national energy security as we seek to deliver net zero by 2050. Using this technology creates an affordable and secure low-carbon drop-in fuel that also enforces a more efficient utilization of the waste resource to target harder to decarbonise sectors and maximise GHG savings.”

Circular Fuels Ltd is backed and majority owned by Dimeta, a joint-venture between SHV Energy and UGI International – two of the world’s biggest liquified petroleum gas (LPG) companies – and sustainable energy solutions firm KEW Technology, which is providing the high efficiency and pressurised Advanced Conversion Technology used within the plant’s process.

The plant is set to be operational in 2025.

Chris Musgrave OBE, Teesworks Partner, said: “Circular Fuels are an important part of what we’re doing at Teesworks. This is another major clean and green investment secured on a vast site which will bring hundreds of green jobs to Dorman Point.

“Our chemical and engineering knowhow means we’re the perfect spot for this and the submission of these plans takes us another step closer to getting it up and running.”