UK announces Shell deal for gas-fired CCS project

• 10 years ago (2014-02-27)
• Junior Isles

Europe 1061 North America 998 Renewables 752

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UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Energy Secretary Ed Davey have announced the signing of a multi-million pound deal with Shell to begin retrofitting the Peterhead gas-fired power plant with carbon capture and storage technology.

If successful, the plant would then be able to generate enough clean energy to power half a million homes by capturing 1 million tonnes of CO2 each year or 90 per cent of usual emissions from one of its three turbines.

The Peterhead carbon capture and storage (CCS) project is the second to be funded under the UK’s CCS competition, and alongside the White Rose CCS Project in Yorkshire, will have access to £100 million of the £1 billion CCS budget over the next two years.

Peterhead will be the first gas plant in the world to capture carbon dioxide on an industrial scale and pipe it for undersea storage.

“The innovation of the UK’s energy industry is something we should be really proud of and the fact that we are a world leader in carbon capture and storage is a great example of our country’s ingenuity,” said Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.

Scottish Carbon Capture & Storage (SCCS) said it welcomed the Peterhead CCS Project deal and has signed an agreement with the UK Government for a front-end engineering and design (FEED) study.

SCCS Director, Professor of CCS at the University of Edinburgh, Stuart Haszeldine said: “The Peterhead project is critical to reducing the cost of tackling the UK’s carbon emissions by demonstrating that full-chain CCS offers a viable and safe route to doing so. CCS on gas will become even more important, due to the UK government’s emphasis on using more gas for electricity generation, and is inescapable if shale gas emerges as a fuel source for the UK. The flexible operation of this type of CCS linked to gas-fired power makes it an ideal complement to renewables, with the potential to infill electricity generation during variable wind output.”

He continued: “The agreement of the FEED studies for both Peterhead and White Rose also helps give fresh momentum to CCS in Europe. The European Commission’s recent proposals for climate and energy policy for 2030 reiterated that accelerated efforts are required during the next decade to develop infrastructure so that CCS can be deployed on industrial sources of CO2 emissions as well as power generation.”