Are You Ready for the Medium Combustion Plant Directive?

On 17th November Combustion Engineering Association (CEA) are holding a conference workshop at Daventry Court Hotel, Daventry on this new piece of legislation which will affect owners and operators of industrial boiler plant.

One of the single most important directives for many years in the combustion industry is about to become EU law and will soon be transposed into UK law. If you own or operate any combustion plant with a thermal input of between 1MW and 50MW you will be affected. This means anyone with a boiler generating around 1.5 tonnes of steam or more, or using a CHP or diesel generator of around 500kVA or more, will need to know about this directive. There are estimated to be at least 15,000 such plants in the UK alone. Details of the directive are currently being finalised in the EU Parliament, but it is expected that all new combustion plants in the 1-50MW range will have to comply with the new rules from 2018. Existing plants have more time to get ready as the rules for them will not apply until somewhat later, depending on MW rating. A formal process of registering all combustion plants will have to be introduced. It does not matter what fuel you use (gas, oil, biomass, recovered) or how often you use your boiler or engine; everyone will be required to complete some form of registration. Then, according to the fuel type and the running hours there will be a series of emission limits and monitoring requirements that will have to be complied with. Larger plants will have to measure NOx, SOx, dust and CO every year; smaller plants will have to measure every three years. Infrequently used plants will not have to measure emissions unless they run for more than a minimum number of hours. 

The conference workshop brings together all the relevant industry sectors to discuss with regulators how this directive is to be implemented and when all the new rules will come into force. This will be of interest to all combustion plant users, manufacturers and packagers (energy centres, CHP etc.) as well as those involved in measurement and recording of combustion emissions. It will affect every medium sized combustion plant user and manufacturer, and this will be your opportunity to hear about the proposed regulations and discuss what the impact will be for you and your industry. There are many issues to be resolved, not least the details of the registration scheme, the monitoring and measurement requirements and administrative matters such as recording operating hours, extending existing plants, working with multiple burner and multi fuel installations, hired plant, compliance and penalties. If you want an opportunity to discuss this new directive with the experts and have your say, this is it!

Cochran will be attending and exhibiting at the workshop and would be happy to discuss how we can assist you to meet the forthcoming obligations. To book a place for the conference workshop please contact CEA directly at info@cea.org.uk or on 01740 625538