A.W. Jenkinson acquired land at the Steven’s Croft Development Area just off the M74 at Lockerbie in 2000. At the time the adjacent site was occupied by James Jones Sawmills and Forest Garden plc. These two large sawmilling businesses were already associated with A.W. Jenkinson, making the location an ideal choice for development in support of the Scottish timber industry.
Initial improvements at Lockerbie saw the construction of LGV parking, a weighbridge, a bulk storage building for sawmill co products, a workshop and a driver rest building with toilets, showers and a small canteen. Onsite offices also accommodated administrative and traffic staff.
As the fleet grew, the bulk storage building was converted into a three-bay truck workshop manned by Volvo mechanics, with additional trailer servicing and fabrication capability manned by A.W. Jenkinson personnel. Today 74 units are operated and maintained from the Lockerbie site, with vehicle refurbishment activities extending to service the entire fleet. A.W. Jenkinson’s walking floor and chip liner trailers are now regularly overhauled at the site, ensuring they operate to the high standards expected by customers and demanded by A.W. Jenkinson.
In 2005 Powergen (now E.ON) took control of a section of A.W. Jenkinson’s Lockerbie site for the construction of a revolutionary 44 Megawatt CO2neutral biomass power station by Siemens.
Alongside the power station there is now a large scale log yard and a round wood chipping building where new material is combined with other pre chipped biomass to achieve a final blend with the ideal specification to feed the station. The chipping building feeds directly into the plant via an overhead conveyor.
A.W. Jenkinson has built a close working relationship with E.ON that has been a key factor in achieving maximum efficiency from the new facility.
Steven’s Croft has become a lynch pin in A.W. Jenkinson’s Scottish operations. The site services most of the sawmills in Scotland, together with other major customers. The transport department makes extensive use of local drivers, providing a good source of employment for the Dumfries and Galloway area.
A.W. Jenkinson is responsible for management of fuel supplies for E.ON’s £100m 44 Megawatt Steven’s Croft plant near Lockerbie. The CO2 neutral power station is the UK's largest dedicated wood burning plant, consuming some 475,000 tonnes of sustainable chipped wood fuel every year, including around 95,000 tonnes of short rotation willow coppice, much of which is grown onsite.
Opened in autumn 2007, the environmentally responsible plant cuts releases of greenhouse gasses by around 140,000 tonnes, compared to fossil fuel power generation each year. Steven’s Croft won Best Renewable Project 2007 at the Scottish Green Energy Awards.
The particular advantage of the Steven’s Croft plant is its ability to take fuel with a relatively high moisture content such as newly cut roundwood. To reduce ash content the bark; which forms a useful raw material for other areas of the AWJ operation; is removed prior to chipping.
Worldwide, biomass fuels can include forestry wood and agricultural residues, urban wastes, bio gas and energy crops. Biomass plants are common in Finland and there are similar sized operations in Holland and other parts of Europe using willow very successfully as a fuel. In the United Kingdom it is planned to deliver 10% of our energy requirement from renewable sources by 2010.
Adjacent to Forest Garden’s sawmilling site and the Steven’s Croft plant itself, A.W. Jenkinson operates a purpose built wood chip processing facility.
The site is the reception point for all chipped fuels used at Steven’s Croft, arriving both as sustainable low grade timber and material from other Jenkinson sites that has been pre chipped from life expired scrap timber, refuse wood collected at council sites and as milling residues.
Raw timber delivered to site is typically softwood and hardwood generated by the arboricultural industry during tree felling, storm damage clearance and tree surgery operations, as well as wood unsuitable for milling into timber.
The chipped material produced onsite is combined with drier recycled product, delivered from locations such as A.W. Jenkinson’s nearby Hespin Wood facility, to achieve the ideal moisture content within the allowable blend. The resulting fuel is then carried on overhead conveyor across the road and directly into the E.ON facility. A.W. Jenkinson’s team test every load received for consistency of quality and moisture content.
The A.W. Jenkinson site also has a large storage area for both logs and chipped wood. This stored fuel is essential because the power generation industry often has major peaks in demand. These are common in the winter months, particularly through Christmas and the New Year when the forestry industry, that supplies the raw material for the fuel, may be unable to meet short term production requirements.