by Roger Milne
Energy secretary Ed Davey sought coalition approval this week to allocate £1 billion to up to four carbon capture and storage (CCS) schemes, following his department’s launch of a second competition in April. Davey is understood to be keen for two of the projects to demonstrate the full end-to-end process.
The latest UK competition was organised to dovetail with a European Union initiative (the NER EU programme), which is allocating billions of euros to CCS and renewable energy projects from a fund created by the sale of EU carbon emissions allowances.
The government has to decide this month which CCS projects it will back, because a number of the UK schemes are in line for EU support on condition the member state provides matching funds.
Davey was due to make his case for the funding at a meeting on Thursday 18 October of the coalition’s Quad committee, which resolves issues with major spending implications. The prime minister, deputy prime minister, chancellor and financial secretary to the Treasury sit on the committee.
It emerged this week that it was the government’s Major Projects Authority that called a halt to the first CCS competition last October, concerned at spiralling costs.
Cluster ‘would provide economic boost’
Two candidate projects for CCS funding – an oxyfuel scheme at Drax and Don Valley Power Project – form part of plans for a CCS Yorkshire and Humber Cluster. A report published by low-carbon consultancy CO2Sense on Tuesday claimed the planned cluster would create 4,000 jobs and £1.3 billion in investment.
Last week, National Grid and the Energy Technologies Institute announced plans to investigate a saline formation 70km off Flamborough Head in Yorkshire, and test its suitability for CO2 storage.
This article first appeared in Utility Week’s print edition of 19th October 2012.
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