How Many Combustion Plants Are There in the UK?

Combustion plants – defined as any machine, piece of equipment or facility which combusts a fuel source to create energy – are a chief source of the power which lights and heats our homes. With a growing population of almost 70 million people, there are understandably tens of thousands of such facilities across the UK.

Quantifying the exact number of combustion plants is a tricky business, given that there is not a great deal of detailed records on smaller and larger plants available. Having said that, it is possible to give an approximation of the current landscape of the combustion plant industry in Britain, both in terms of installed capacity and individual facilities.

Combustion plants by installed capacity

The most recent data for the installed capacity of combustion plants in the UK comes from 2017 and was collated by the European Environment Agency (EEA). According to that source, the UK had the following installed capacity:

• Small combustion plants – 8.708GWth
• Medium combustion plants – 14.968GWth
• Large combustion plants – 11.917GWth
• Very large combustion plants – 95.937GWth

Cumulatively, that adds up to 131.53GWth, which puts the UK third on the list of EU member states behind only Germany (with over double the installed capacity of the UK) and Italy (which has only marginally more installed capacity).

Of course, the completion of Brexit means that the UK no longer counts itself an EU member, but the EU regulations surrounding emissions from combustion plants still apply in Britain today. For more information on that legislation, check out the document The European Union’s Large Combustion Plant BREF – Monitoring and Compliance Requirements.

Combustion plants by number of facilities

According to the latest figures collated by the UK government, there are estimated to be between 30,000 and 35,000 medium combustion plants (MCPs) in the UK. MCPs are differentiated from large combustion plants (LCPs) and smaller facilities by their thermal input, which must be between 1MWth but below 50MWth.

While quantifying the number of MCPs is a relatively straightforward process, things become more difficult when it comes to the other facilities. That’s because there are no comprehensive records of either smaller plants or LCPs available. However, the European Industrial Production Information Exchange (EIPIE) is working to solve that problem with the launch of its Industrial Plant Data Viewer.

This tool allows interested parties to view the number of LCPs by country, fuel type, capacity and many other metrics. As yet, the data included in the Viewer is somewhat incomplete, since Britain is shown to have just three LCPs at present and the real figure is known to be far higher. However, it’s a step in the right direction in creating a more comprehensive record of Britain’s combustion plants across the board.