The reference plant is 8 MW, gathering fuel from 2,000 hectares of coppice. The technologies, and many of the environmental impacts of the Short Rotation Coppice fuel cycle, are influenced by the location of each stage.
Storage occurs at a series of points throughout the growing area.
Initially cut wood is stored in small field stores, then in larger strategic stores, and finally moved to the generating facility. These sites have been selected to develop short rotation coppicing because set-aside land is available in the area. The electricity produced can readily be fed into the local electricity grid as the generation plant is close to Eggborough coal fired power plant, and there are good road and rail links. The stages a re shown in Figure 1 and are described in Table 1. in more detail. The major environmental burdens of electricity generation from biomass result from the atmospheric emissions.