The North Yorkshire-based scheme is a shoo-in for the cash as the only eligible submission for the European Commission’s NER300 competition. Brussels originally set out to support up to 12 CCS schemes but failed to identify suitable projects in earlier funding rounds.
The grant from Brussels, worth around £250 million, will supplement £1 billion from the UK government to be split between White Rose and Peterhead schemes.
Both schemes are undergoing front end engineering and design (Feed) studies in preparation to make final investment decisions late next year.
White Rose is backed by a consortium of Drax Power, Alstom and BOC. The project entails a new 426MW coal-fired power station on the Drax site, fitted with equipment to capture around 90 per cent of the emissions and pipe them to storage reservoirs under the North Sea.
Meanwhile Peterhead, in Aberdeenshire, could be the world’s first gas-fired CCS plant, if it goes ahead. Peterhead is a joint venture between SSE and Shell.
CCS is seen as crucial to cutting carbon emissions as it will allow for the continued use of fossil fuels for energy. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates decarbonising without CCS will cost 138 per cent more over the period 2030 to 2050.
However, development of the technology has been held up by high costs and a collapsed carbon price.