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White Rose carbon capture and storage project has been allocated funds under a £1 billion commercialisation programme, government confirmed on Monday.
The £2 billion project, which will take emissions from a new 426MW coal plant at Drax, North Yorkshire, and pipe them to be stored under the North Sea, is the first to be approved for a UK government grant.
If completed, it will be the largest oxy combustion plant in the world.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change would not reveal the size of the initial grant as negotiations are still ongoing for the Peterhead scheme in Aberdeenshire. A spokesperson said the sum, which will pay for a full feasibility study, was “in the tens of millions”.
The announcement came as energy secretary Ed Davey officially opened the biomass conversion at Drax, another plank of the “greener future” for the UK’s coal plants. He said: “I’m proud that the UK is at the forefront of developing carbon capture and storage – which could be a game-changer in tackling climate change and provide a huge economic advantage not just to this region, but to the whole country.”
Power generation with CCS is also expected to be eligible for some support under the Electricity Market Reform subsidy regime.
Luke Warren, chief executive of the CCS Association, said: “We are tremendously pleased that the Government has successfully reached the next milestone in delivering the first UK CCS projects. This is a major step forward for the White Rose project and we also anticipate a positive announcement on the Peterhead CCS project in the near-future.
“These commercial-scale CCS projects will show that fossil-fuel power stations can continue to contribute to a secure and affordable electricity system without compromising our climate change goals.”
National Grid is developing the Yorkshire Humber CCS Trunkline, the pipeline and storage network for White Rose. This could be extended to take the emissions of other large power stations and heavy industry in Humberside.
Peter Boreham, National Grid’s Director of European Business Development, said: “We are pleased with the announcement of funding from Decc today and to be part of the White Rose CCS Project. For National Grid Carbon, this means we can continue to move forward with the development of a Humber CCS cluster that could transport carbon dioxide from the Yorkshireand Humberside area to offshore storage.”
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