Government to support European funding for CCS

The Government has committed to support the winning projects of its £1bn carbon capture and storage (CCS) competition, if they choose to apply for European finding, under new guidance published today.


The European’s NER 300 investment programme for low-carbon technologies is aimed at promoting the commercial demonstration of CCS and innovative renewable energy (RES) technologies. 

The European Commission launched its second call for CCS proposals at the beginning of this month after the first call saw no CCS projects qualify for funding as governments across Europe failed to provide match-funding guarantees.

The new guidance from DECC states that the Government will support the two preferred bidders – the Peterhead project in Aberdeenshire and White Rose project in Yorkshire, as well as the two reserve bidders in its CCS competition.

A DECC spokesman said: “We’ve had a tremendous response from industry for our £1bn CCS competition that puts us at the forefront of the technology in Europe and across the world.

“Should the final two preferred bidders and reserve applicants in our competition wish to bid for EU NER 300 funding the Government intends to support their application.

“We think these projects have significant potential to deliver early commercial-scale CCS in the UK.”

DECC says it is up to the individual CCS project whether to apply for NER 300 funding and that support is subject to both the project being in the UK’s competition up until the EU’s submission deadline of 3 July 2013 and meeting the EU eligibility criteria.

Conor McGlone

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