The research centre is seeking bids to carry out detailed design, construction and testing of a UK-based 5MW carbon capture demonstration plant. This follows initial work led by Inventys Thermal Technologies last year.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) development to date has largely concentrated on more polluting coal-fired power stations.
However, with the UK expected to have 30GW of gas power capacity by 2020, some will need to be retrofitted with CCS technology to meet carbon reduction targets. So said Andrew Green, ETI programme manager for CCS, adding: “Newly developed technology which reduces costs and accelerates deployment by 2030 is therefore critical.”
One of two projects in the government’s £1 billion CCS commercial scale demonstration competition is at SSE’s gas-fired Peterhead plant in Aberdeenshire.
Philip Sharman, chair of the Advanced Power Generation Technology Forum said: “The growing importance of gas in the UK’s owner generation ‘mix’ necessitates the urgent development and deployment of CCS technology for the new gas-fired generating capacity.”