GREEN energy for businesses and hundreds of homes? Five hundred jobs?

The question everyone is asking is whether plans to build a new Energy Park in Bulwell has legs or is just so much (renewable) hot air.

Nottingham City Council's aspirations to construct a major renewable energy plant next to Blenheim Industrial Park have been circulating for around two years.

But earlier this year, the authority confirmed its intentions by inviting dozens of developers to talks on how the development would move forward.

The council wants to build a new business park that will get at least some of its electricity and heat from some form of renewable energy. As well as supplying new 'greentech' businesses attracted to the new park, the council has said it believes there could be enough electricity generated to supply Rolls-Royce at Hucknall plus 800 new homes being built in Wigwam Lane and Grange Farm, near Hucknall.

The creation of some 500 jobs is also being connected to the project.

The suggested start date for construction is spring 2013. With Nottingham making budget cuts, city council leaders say they want the main capital costs of building the park and the energy plant to be borne by the private sector.

However, the council wants a partnership with the developer in an arrangement that gives the council a financial return. Two or three consortia of developers have already formed to bid for the site.

Ian Vernalls, who leads the city council team managing the development of the Energy Park, said he was in talks with several potential developers and hoped to have a yes or no decision on the project from the authority by late summer or autumn.

Vernalls said that several forms of renewable energy were being considered for the site including solar, wind, geothermal and waste-to-energy, the latter including anaerobic digestion, which generates electricity from the methane produced by rotting food and garden waste.

Whatever form the Energy Park takes, it is the second large renewable energy project in Nottingham's public sector and follows the city council's deal with E.ON to put solar panels on the roofs of 600 council homes in Aspley. Both projects are partly tied up with the council's goals to reduce carbon emissions by 26 per cent by 2020 and to raise the amount of renewable energy produced in the city to 20 per cent by the same date.

The other rationale behind the Energy Park is its role in job creation and skills training as part of the growing 'green economy.' The Energy Park is already being linked to possible training in 'green collar' jobs at Bulwell Academy and project leaders believe the park will also attract smart new knowledge-intensive 'greentech' businesses.

"We are not looking for Eastcroft Mark II," city council deputy leader Graham Chapman told developers at the Loxley House meeting. "We are looking for something with a genuine mix – and that sounds like a big challenge."

So what about the 500 jobs? This figure is derived from an employment density guide and the potential 20-25,000 sq m size of the new business park. In other words, if the business park is full, around 500 people could have jobs at the site.

Although several kinds of renewable energy are being considered for the Energy Park, it is some form of 'waste-to-energy,' including anaerobic digestion (AD), which has been linked to the project for the longest. Indeed, according to the city's energy strategy, '...only with this plant as well as the other elements detailed in the Energy Strategy will Nottingham be able to meet its part of the national targets for 2020…'

If AD is chosen for the park, the raw material would include the 30,000 tonnes of food and garden waste produced by Nottingham per year. According to the energy strategy, this volume of waste could generate 6.23GWh of electricity per year. This is slightly more than a large onshore wind turbine can produce and is enough to supply the electricity of more than 1,200 homes each year.

However, unlike a turbine, the AD plant would also generate an even larger amount of renewable heat for the use of homes and businesses, with properties connected to the plant enjoying lower heating and electricity bills, albeit only if in long-term contracts.

So can Nottingham people expect a change in their waste collection regime if an AD plant goes ahead at Bulwell? Possibly not. Ian Vernalls told the Post that it was more likely that any AD plant at Bulwell would be fuelled by 'dry' plant material rather than 'wet' food waste since there are problems associated with the contamination of food waste collected from households.

However, while there are few municipal AD plants currently in operation in the UK to use as comparisons, there is one in the region which is already using food waste. At Wanlip, Leicestershire, Biffa operates a £30m AD plant which generates electricity from 42,000 tonnes of garden and food waste produced in Leicester each year. The 25-year PFI waste contract with Leicester is worth £300m.

Biffa claims that enough electricity is produced per hour to power 1,500 homes.

By contrast, Nottingham City Council says that energy and heat produced at the Bulwell energy park will initially be used by businesses at the Blenheim Industrial Estate next door. Surplus energy could be used by other developments nearby or sold to the National Grid.

One group of people who are already opposed to the Energy Park are allotment holders who say they are prepared to use the law to resist eviction from their land to make way for the development.

The gardeners have remained on site for the past decade since the last major regeneration plan for the area collapsed, when Raleigh pulled out of a deal to relocate its bicycle factory there.

Now, as then, a core of gardeners at the Blenheim Road allotment site say they will refuse to make way for the bulldozers and turn down offers of compensation and new land. Green energy or not, history could be repeated at Bulwell.