Government commits £26m to nine CCUS projects

Tata Chemicals Europe has unveiled plans to invest £16.7 million in the UK’s first large-scale carbon capture facility at its Northwich industrial site in Cheshire.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is supporting the scheme with a £4.7 million grant.

It is one of nine projects receiving a share of £26 million from the government to advance the rollout of carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS)

At Northwich, carbon dioxide will be extracted from the flue gases of an existing 96MW gas-fired combined heat and power plant and used to produce sodium bicarbonate for food and pharmaceutical products.

According to Tata, the plant will be able to capture and process up to 40,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, reducing the company’s total annual emissions by 11 per cent following its construction over the next two years.

Its managing director Martin Ashcroft said: “The CCU demonstration plant will enable us to reduce our carbon emissions, whilst securing supplies of a critical raw material, helping to grow the export of our products across the world.

“Implementing this industry leading project, with such strong environmental and operational benefits is hugely exciting, and we’re pleased to be working closely with BEIS to deliver the demonstration plant.

“We hope that this project will demonstrate the viability of CCU and pave the way for further applications of the technology to support the decarbonization of industrial activity.”

Interim energy and clean growth minister Chris Skidmore commented: “Cutting edge technology to capture carbon will cut emissions as we work towards a net-zero economy, while creating new jobs – a key part of our modern industrial strategy.

“This innovative project from Tata Chemicals Europe represents a major milestone in efforts to rollout carbon capture at scale by the 2030s.”

Luke Warren, chief executive of Carbon Capture and Storage Association, welcomed the the funding announcemetn from government: “This is fantastic news for the development of carbon capture, usage and storage in the UK.

“This £26 million of funding is critical first step to ensuring the first CCUS projects are up and running by the mid-2020s in a range of clusters across the country and will help the government meet its ambition to deploy the technology at scale in the 2030s.

“If the UK is serious about achieving net zero emissions by 2050, this is just the sort of action that is needed now.”

The full list of projects which have secured funding is as follows:

Carbon Capture, Usage and Demonstration (CCUD)

• Drax – Fuel Cell Biogenic Carbon Capture Demonstration, £500,000 towards a £1 million project
• Origen Power – Oxy-Fuelled Flash Calciner Project, £249,000 towards a £356,000 project
• Tata Chemicals Europe – Carbon Capture and Utilisation Demonstration, £4.2 million towards a £17 million project

Call for CCUS Innovation

• C-Capture – Negative CO2 emissions from BECCS, £4,915,070 towards an £11.1 million project
• Pale Blue Dot Energy – Acorn storage site, £4,795,017 towards an £8.1 million project
• TiGRE Technologies Limited – Integration of CCUS technology to a 200MW OCGT TiGRE Project located in the North Sea, £163,909 towards a £243,000 project
• Translational Energy Research Centre (PACT-2) – Led by University of Sheffield / Pilot-Scale Advanced Capture Technology (PACT), £7 million toward a £21 million project
• Progressive Energy – HyNet Industrial CCS, £494,626 toward a £765,500 project
• OGCI Climate Investments – Clean Gas Project, £3.8 million toward an £18 million project