Dutch Government Backs CCS Project with 150 Million Euros

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--The Dutch government has awarded 150 million euros ($186 million) for the continued development of a leading carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in Rotterdam, Europe's largest port.

The Rotterdam Capture Storage and Demonstration Project (ROAD) is the first large-scale CCS demonstration project in the Netherlands and is jointly owned by E.ON AG (OTC:EONGY) (Dusseldorf, Germany), Electrabel SA (Brussels, Belgium) and its parent company, GDF Suez SA (EPA:GSZ) (Paris, France). The financial grant for the 2010-20 investment and demonstration phase of the project was made by the Netherlands' minister of economic affairs, Maria van der Hoeven.

The ROAD project aims to capture CO2 from the new E.ON-owned coal-fired unit under construction at the Maasvlakte plant in Rotterdam. Attached to the new 1,100-megawatt (MW) unit, the CCS plant will transport the captured CO2 by pipeline to the P18-A platform, about 20 kilometres from the coast. The goal is to capture 30% of the CO2 emitted by the new plant

"The costs of CO2 capture and storage are still too high for the profitable application of CCS," the government said when awarding the financial aid. "Technology development and economies of scale should reduce costs. Storage projects provide a direct contribution to reducing CO2 emissions. CCS is an important link in the transition to a sustainable energy system."

The government added: "We wish to accelerate the implementation of CCS in our country, which has the advantage of having Dutch suppliers of technology with the knowledge and experience to build on its lead. It is expected that CCS will offer a cost-effective CO2 reduction from 2020. The ROAD project is contributing to the future, industry-wide application of carbon capture technology."

ROAD was one of six carbon-capture projects awarded a share of more than 1 billion euros ($1.24 billion) last December by the European Commission, which has placed a high priority on advancing CCS technology to the large-scale implementation stage by 2020. ROAD, along with four other projects, will receive 180 million euros ($223 million) each, while Porto Tolle will receive about 100 million euros ($124 million). For related news, see December 10, 2009, article - Europe Releases 1.5 Billion Euros in Grants for CCS and Offshore Projects.

The six winning CCS projects were:

• the coal-fired integrated gas combined-cycle plant in Hatfield from Powerfuel Power Limited (Doncaster, England)
• Endesa SA's (MCE:ELE) (Madrid, Spain) Compostilla plant in Spain
• Vattenfall AB's (Stockholm, Sweden) Jaenschwalde plant in Germany
• PGE Elektrownia's Belchatow plant in Poland
• the Maasvlakte power plant in Rotterdam, owned by E.ON Benelux (Rotterdam)
• Italy's Porto Tolle plant near Venice, owned by Enel SpA (BIT:ENEL) (Rome)

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