The Port of Liverpool is celebrating after winning a prestigious global award for its biomass facility. The award for best ship loading and unloading went to Peel Ports and Siwertell jointly at the ceremony in London on 21 November.

Peel Ports and Siwertell work in partnership to operate the biomass handling facility in Liverpool's port, which has seen £100 million of investment to date. The facility was flagged up as having excellent standards of efficiency and capacity and for its expertise in supplying Drax power plant with wooden pellets in large volume - often up to ten train loads every day.

Drax power station is the largest in the UK and also the largest decarbonisation project in Europe, having switched from fossil fuel operation to biomass, with its wood pellets imported from the USA.

In order to meet demand, the biomass management facility at Peel Ports was made using two commercial-grade ship unloaders with a huge berth capacity in order to turn around Panamax ships quickly and efficiently. The loads are also fully enclosed, which is the best 'green' choice for handling dusty wooden pellet loads.

The Port Director, David Huck, said that the system was helping to grow the UK's biomass supply chain. He congratulated the team who had worked on the partnership project to date, saying that their hard work had helped to create a biomass handling facility that was genuinely world-class in its scope and operation and creating best practices for other ports to aspire to.

Drax produces a whopping 7pc of all of the UK's energy from its base in Yorkshire. It is leading the way in creating a sustainable energy future for Britain by switching its operation away from damaging fossil fuels to sustainable biomass fuels.