The FINANCIAL — Firefighters are battling a blaze at RWE npower's Tilbury biomass-fired power station in Essex, eastern England, the company said Monday, and the plant has been shut down as a result.
According to Borsa Italiana – London Stock Exchange Group, RWE npower, the U.K. unit of Germany utility RWE AG, said that the fire broke out at 0745 GMT within a fuel storage area inside the power station.
"The police and around 100 firefighters are currently on site. We will investigate the cause of the incident and the extent of the damage to the station but our priority in the meantime is to work with the authorities on site," npower said in a statement.
Tilbury was converted from a coal-fired power plant to a 100% biomass plant in 2011. The power plant has been generating only on biomass since December and was at the end of the commissioning phase.
The station's nameplate generating capacity is 750 megawatts, or enough to supply around 1.5 million homes.
A spokeswoman for npower couldn't give the power station's generating capacity at the time of the fire, but said the power plant was generating from both units and supplying electricity to the grid.
