UK CSS ambitions under threat from lack of funding

• 13 years ago (2011-10-08)
• Junior Isles

Europe 1089 Renewables 776

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UK electricity generator Scottish Power is threatening to withdraw from a project to build a flagship pilot carbon capture & storage (CCS) facility at Longannet coal-fired power station near Fife, Scotland, unless the government gives it £0.5 billion ($0.78 billion) more in funding.

If the money cannot be produced this would be a severe blow to the UK's hopes of becoming a world leader in the new green technology. Urgent talks are being held between Scottish Power, DECC and the UK Treasury.

The plant is the UK's second largest coal-fired power station and Europe's third largest. If the CCS venture proved to be successful it could capture 7-8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year; making a serious contribution to the UK's emissions reduction targets.

Chancellor George Osborne had earmarked £1 billion of government assistance for the project, but Scottish Power, owned by the Spanish power company Iberdrola, is now asking for half as much again. The plant was due to be running by 2015.

It is predicted that some of the funding will come from the sale of CO2 permits by the European Investment Bank that are beginning in a month's time.

The bank is being given 300 million EU carbon permits by the European Commission, which are reserved for new entrants into the EU's emissions trading scheme from 2013, and is being told to sell 20 million units per month through next year in order to raise funds for renewable energy and carbon capture and storage projects in all the member states.

The potential loss of the Longannet project would also affect proposals for a £3 billion coal-fired power station with CCS in Ayrshire, by Ayrshire Power, a company owned by Peel Energy Ltd.

Developers of several other proposed power plants with CCS are also waiting to see if they can be constructed. Scottish Power itself is hoping to add CCS to a new gas turbine power station at Cockenzie in East Lothian, which has also just received planning permission.

Only in June, ScottishPower, National Grid and Shell announced plans to create an onshore pipeline to carry up to two million tonnes of CO2 from Longannet to the North Sea.

In September, the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) launched a £3 million, two-and-a-half year project involving EDF Energy, E.ON, Rolls-Royce and Petrofac, to create a modelling tool-kit capable of simulating the operation of all aspects of the CCS chain, from capture and transport to storage.

ETI chief executive Dr David Clarke believes that “around a third of the UK’s electricity could be generated from coal, gas, biomass or hydrogen turbines fitted with CCS by 2050".

“CCS infrastructure is complex," he says, "and will need to be rolled out rapidly to meet those targets."