RWE’s 2,400 MW UK Project Will Be Designed ‘Carbon-Capture-Ready’

---

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). At a site where Britain’s oldest coal fired 1,802 MW power station was demolished in 2003, RWE npower (Swindon, UK), the UK division of Germany’s power utility RWE (Essen, Germany), is investigating the feasibility of a new state of the art 2,400 MW coal fired power plant. The site at Blyth, a city in northeast England, is an area with high density and a range of developed industrial activities.

The power company has submitted an environmental scoping document to the department of trade and industry in which proposals for the three 800 MW, high efficiency supercritical coal-fired units would generate power equivalent to that needed to power 3.5 million homes. The company claims that the new power station would reduce CO2 by over 22% for every unit of electricity generated and reduce emissions by over 3 millions tons of CO2 per annum when compared to older generation coal fired plants.

Residents of the area are weighing up the prospects of having a new power plant on their doorstep after seeing their lifestyle emerge from under the four, demolished giant smoke stacks and the power plant installations. RWE npower considers that Blyth is an ideal location for a new power station as it is close to port and rail facilities for transport and good water supplies for the power station.

Current with a new trend, the project would be deigned to be “carbon capture ready.” Once carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is proven, CO2 could be transported to the North Sea and stored in geological formations. The new power station would also be developed to include the capacity to burn up to 10% ‘carbon neutral’ biomass fuels.

The $4 billion proposed power project could be in operation by 2014 and would create 150 permanent jobs and over 1,500 jobs during construction and make a major contribution to the local economy. RWE npower says that it could also put Blyth at the center of the development of CCS technology in the future. The project has still to negotiate a number of financial, legal, regulatory and technical hurdles but the company feels CCS is an important driver and is committed to further research and development.

The company sees coal as a vital component in the UK’s future energy mix to guarantee secure electricity supply and is looking at possible locations for coal fired plants in the north and south of England.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) provides marketing communication services ranging from industrial database solutions to market forecasting, custom analytics, and specialty promotions that support high-level image campaigns.