Endless Energy Keighley - Information Page

Overview

This page is to provide information about our final decision to issue an environmental permit to Endless Energy Limited to operate an energy from waste facility at Aire Valley Road, Keighley.

The Application

In October 2018 Endless Energy Limited applied to the Environment Agency for an environmental permit to operate an energy from waste facility at a site on Aire Valley Road in Keighley. We are legally obliged to assess an application and determine if a permit should or should not be issued.

Our technical assessment of the application began in October 2018. We held our first public consultation between 1 November and 13 December 2018. Over 2000 comments were received during this consultation.

We then consulted on our draft decision between 8 June 2020 and 12 August 2020. During this time we received over 1600 comments.

Final decision

We have now considered all the comments received during both consultation stages of the process. We have incorporated the comments within the final decision document. This document explains our decision making process and how we have assessed the Endless Energy application and the factors that we have taken into account. The decision document also explains our reasons for proposing the conditions in the permit.

We have determined that the applicant has provided sufficient information for us to determine that the facility will not compromise Air Quality Limits or Standards and will meet all the relevant environmental requirements for this type of facility.

We have therefore decided to issue the permit to Endless Energy to allow them to operate the facility as described in their application and additional information that they have provided.

The permit has been issued on 8 December 2020.

Links to the permit and our decision document can be found below.

How did we take account of your comments?

The decision document discusses how we have addressed your concerns. As many comments were duplicated, we have grouped the comments into themes.

The decision document is split into various sections, which will help you to see how your comments have been addressed. Our guide to the decision document gives you references to where some of the more frequently raised issues are addressed in the decision document:

What happens next?

The permit that has been issued sets out legally binding conditions that Endless Energy Ltd must follow in order to protect air quality, groundwater and surface water and to ensure the safe storage, management and disposal of wastes. It also imposes conditions to minimise the risk of accidents, noise and odour and maximise energy efficiency.

We regulate the performance of energy from waste plants in the following ways:

• Issuing permits which say how the plant must be operated, the monitoring that must be done and the limits it must meet. The permits contain conditions on:

1. Competent management of the installation;
2. energy efficiency, accident prevention, noise control;
3. limits on emissions to air predominantly and other media where relevant;
4. training for staff on written operating instructions;
5. details on how waste and raw materials should be received, handled and stored;
6. the types and quantity of waste the installation is allowed to take in;
7. operating conditions such as burn times and temperature; and
8. monitoring techniques, equipment, standards and sampling.

• Carrying out regular inspections and audits;
• Requiring operators to monitor key emissions using appropriate monitoring standards and to report the results to us;
• Regularly reviewing monitoring techniques and assessing monitoring results to measure the performance of the plant and check that it is not exceeding permitted limits;
• If we identify that an energy from waste plant breaches any of its permit conditions we will take the appropriate enforcement action. This may be a warning for minor breaches or enforcement notices to rectify the situation and even prosecution for more serious offences;
• We put all of the operator's monitoring reports and our records of  inspections and audits on the public register.