Beddington Energy Recovery Facility (ERF) - Power Outage

On Monday (16th October 2023) at 23.00 a UK Power Network (UKPN) fault occurred causing the Beddington ERF to come offline. 

Following concerns from residents about emissions from the facility during Tuesday, council officers have been speaking with Viridor, who are responsible for the site, and attended a meeting with them, local councillors and other local community groups on-site yesterday.

At the meeting, Viridor confirmed that the Environment Agency, who is responsible for overseeing Viridor’s safe operation of the facility, had been notified and will be reviewing Viridor’s detailed investigation into the incident. We continue to seek information from Viridor and the Environment Agency about what happened and what is being done to prevent another occurrence, but it may be some time before we have all the answers.

We have today been informed that the facility is back up and running, although the power generation is still to come online, so there may be further excess steam visible at the site.

There has been some concern in the community about the shutdown’s potential impacts on local air quality. The Council has reviewed the data available from several air quality monitors in the area, and there has been no unusual recording of levels of particulates or nitrogen oxides - the two pollutants we and other councils commonly monitor. We will continue to monitor the readings over the coming days. If anyone does have concerns about their health following this incident, they should contact their GP. 

We remain committed to finding out exactly what happened surrounding the power outage on Monday evening and to help ensure it never happens again. We will continue to keep residents informed.