U.K. Carbon Capture Projects Closer to E.U. Funding

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) -- The European Investment Bank (EIB) has cleared all of the UK's proposed carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects to move forward to the next stage of its €4.5 billion ($5.9 billion) funding competition.

The EIB conducted a financial assessment for all of the projects put forward for a share of the European Union's (E.U.'s) New Entrants Reserve 300 (NER300) funding programme, which is designed to drive forward the development of leading carbon capture and renewable energy projects.

The news comes just a week after the U.K. government announced that it is almost ready to start spending its promised €1.2 billion ($1.6 billion) in funding to accelerate the development of commercial scale CCS projects. Despite numerous delays in recent years, the government has now published a contract notice in the European Union's (E.U.'s) official journal calling for proposals covering a wide range of carbon capture related projects. For additional information, see March 2, 2012, article - U.K. Prepares to Spend €1.2 Billion Carbon Capture Fund.

Last May, the U.K. put forward seven CCS projects for consideration. Since then, the largest of those projects at the Longannet coal-fired plant in Scotland has been canned. In October, the government announced it would no longer support the project owned by ScottishPower (Glasgow, Scotland), which then cancelled the project. For additional information, see October 20, 2011, article - Scottish Carbon Capture Project Cancelled.

The remaining six projects in the running for E.U. funding are:

• Alstom Limited Consortium: oxyfuel new supercritical coal-fired power station on Drax site in North Yorkshire;

• C.GEN: new integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power station (pre-combustion with CCS on the coal-feed) in Killingholme, Yorkshire;

• Peel Energy CCS Ltd: post-combustion amine capture on new supercritical coal-fired power station in Ayrshire, Scotland;

• Don Valley Power Project (formerly known as the Hatfield Project): new IGCC power station in Stainforth, Yorkshire;

• A consortium led by Progressive Energy Ltd; pre-combustion coal gasification project in Teesside, North East England;

• SSE Generation Limited: post-combustion capture retrofitted to an existing CCGT power station at Peterhead, Scotland.

Speaking recently, Lewis Gillies, CEO of 2Co Energy Limited, commented on the government's recent CCS funding advances: "We are delighted the government remains as committed as ever to accelerating development of carbon capture and storage in the U.K.. We hope the U.K. competition will champion CCS projects that not only make economic sense but that can make the biggest environmental difference and lay foundations for future projects to benefit from the infrastructure they create. Our Don Valley Power Project will generate enough new clean power to heat and light a million UK homes, create hundreds of new jobs and drive major investment in parts of the U.K. that need it most, like Yorkshire and Scotland."

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