Drax has announced its ambition aim to become a “carbon negative” generator by the end of the next decade by capturing and storing the emissions from biomass burnt at its power station in Yorkshire.
The company is already capturing a tonne of carbon dioxide each day from one of the four biomass units at the plant as part of a pilot project, but says this could rise to 16 million tonnes per year if the technology was scaled up to cover all of its biomass emissions.
However, Drax Group chief executive Will Gardiner says this will be contingent on supporting policies from government, including an investment framework for the transportation and storage infrastructure.
The regulatory asset base model, which is already used to fund investments in energy networks, was proposed by the government in July. Gardiner tells Utility Week this should “work well”.
There would also need to be financial support for the capture of emissions by generators. Gardiner sees “real benefits” in negative carbon pricing, which could be incorporated into existing trading arrangements. Payments by emitters could be passed on by those capturing them.
“Over time my expectation is the technology that we are using will become viable without any government support.” He says a market-based mechanism would allow subsidies to be gradually phased out as it becomes cheaper.
However, he adds: “One of the things that is challenging with a traded scheme is that you don’t have the certainty you would need. I think in the beginning there would need to be some way of giving us and other businesses confidence that there’s a long-term price so we can actually make the investments we need to make.”
He says the Contracts for Difference model, already used to support offshore wind, could provide this certainty, with top-up payments being calculated in reference to the price of carbon rather than power.
The Committee on Climate Change’s scenario for reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 relies on bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (CCS) to offset those that cannot be avoided by other means.
However, environmental groups have criticised the use biomass for generation, arguing it is not low-carbon outside of very specific circumstances. A 2017 report from Chatham House concluded that it is often more carbon intensive than gas or even coal generation.