Register for free and continue reading
Join our growing army of changemakers and get unlimited access to our premium content
Plans for the scheme, designed to capture emissions from polluting energy generators or industry, looked dead in the water last month when a consortium working on a pilot project collapsed.
That consortium, made up of ScottishPower, National Grid and Shell, was scrapped after the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) decided against going ahead with the construction phase of its test scheme.
Yesterday (November 9) oil giants Shell along with Big ‘Six’ energy firm SSE announced details of a joint development agreement for a proposed CCS project at SSE’s gas-fired power station in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire in Scotland.
The agreement will enable the project to accelerate a programme of pre-Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) studies, with the intention that the project will be in a position to begin a full FEED study in the second half of 2012.
The project aims to design and develop a full chain, post-combustion CCS facility which will be capable of capturing CO2 from one 385MW combined cycle gas turbine unit at the station.
CO2 from the station will then be transported to the Shell operated Goldeneye gas field in the North Sea using, as far as possible, existing infrastructure
SSE chief executive, Ian Marchant, said: “If long-term targets for reducing emissions are to be met, CCS technology must be applied as widely as possible.
“We therefore welcomed the Government’s decision to include gas-fired generation plant in its CCS demonstration programme.
“However, the development of a commercial-scale CCS demonstration project presents significant challenges and will require appropriate levels of support from both the EU and UK government.”
Shell UK vice president – technical, Glen Cayley, said: “Shell believes CCS is an essential technology in the fight against global climate change and we remain committed to developing CCS in the UK.
“Valuable work has already been carried out during the Longannet Project – work that will be relevant to the proposed CCS project at Peterhead.”
Luke Walsh
Please login or Register to leave a comment.