BOSSES behind a £650m power station have vowed an environmental row won’t derail their plans.

MGT Power says it remains undeterred over the Tees Renewable Energy Plant, which it says will be one of the world’s largest biomass power stations.

The pledge came after US organisations and Danish Friends of the Earth members urged the project’s joint-owner, Denmark’s pension fund PKA, to pull its financial backing.

Campaigners say the factory, which will burn wood chips and pellets imported predominantly from the US, will damage forests in the country, remove animal habitats and impact on carbon emissions.

But MGT, which claims its plant will have capacity to provide electricity for 600,000 homes, last night said it had full confidence in its supplier, Enviva.

The Northern Echo has also seen a letter sent to the Government by the US Department of Agriculture in relation to MGT’s proposals, which states the “US forest eco-system is under pressure from global climate change and increased urbanisation, not from demand for wood products”.

However, Adam Macon, of Dogwood Alliance, a US forestry campaign body, said fears over logging to feed MGT’s plant are genuine.

He said: “Facilities such as MGT Teesside are false solutions to addressing global climate change.”

Almuth Ernsting, from fellow environment group Biofuelwatch, added: “Pension funds should be putting their money into genuinely low carbon and renewable energy, including sustainable wind and solar power.”

Construction work has started on the factory, which is based at Teesport and overseen by subsidiary MGT Teesside, and officials have reiterated expectations that its first energy will go to the National Grid in 2020.

A spokesman told The Northern Echo: “We are obliged to comply with very strict sustainability standards, both in terms of the origin of our biomass and the carbon footprint of our supply chain.

“These will be fully traced and documented, independently audited and regulated by Ofgem.”

The factory is expected to create around 100 permanent full-time jobs, across port handling and offloading.

Officials previously said Stockton’s PX Group had been contracted to support construction work.

They added Darlington’s Whessoe Engineering would help from its position within South Korea’s Samsung Construction and Trading.