UK industry welcomes Government’s CCS competition relaunch

The UK industry has welcomed DECC’s carbon capture competition following “very clear” sets of guidelines this time around. The original Carbon Capture Storage (CCS) project was cancelled last year due […]

The UK industry has welcomed DECC’s carbon capture competition following “very clear” sets of guidelines this time around. The original Carbon Capture Storage (CCS) project was cancelled last year due to complaints from energy companies.

National Grid told ELN of their interest in the competition as the study on CCS now is “more viable” in comparison to the previous year. Chris Train, National Grid’s Network Operations Director said: “We believe the development of CCS technology in the UK is vital to decarbonising industry, ensuring a diverse mix of electricity generation in the future and to helping meet carbon emission targets.”

Alstom, a power and transport company said this time the Government has set “very clear guidelines and timelines” on the £1 billion funding and on the evaluation process. Craig Jones, Director of Government Affairs at Alstom told ELN: “We hope it will bring down costs of CCS and create the market for CCS worldwide.” Alstom is working with Drax and BOC on their ‘White Rose CCS Project’ in Yorkshire.

Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) is also working towards developing a CCS project at a power station in Peterhead, Scotland. Paul Smith, Managing Director of SSE said: “The Peterhead project is in a strong competitive position and can proceed at a pace at least equal to other CCS projects in Europe. It could offer a commercial scale CCS project in the UK as soon as 2017 and give the UK the option of including new-build gas CCS in its generation mix during the 2020s.”

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