£4.2m for CCS research at Grangemouth
Jointly funded Industrial Research & Feasibility study for Caledonia Clean Energy Project
UK and Scottish Governments will provide £4.2 million for industrial research and feasibility work for a proposed full–chain 570 MW Carbon-Capture-Storage (CCS) coal-gasification power station located in Grangemouth, Scotland.
The funding, £1.7 million from Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and £2.5 million from the Scottish Government, will allow Seattle-based Summit Power Group to undertake substantial industrial research and feasibility studies with the ultimate objective of designing, siting, financing, and building their proposed Caledonia Clean Energy Project.
Ed Davey, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change said:
“Carbon Capture and Storage could be crucial in helping us meet our ambitious climate change goals. The UK is one of the world’s frontrunners in this sector and the UK Government is leading Europe with its support of the two competition projects at Peterhead in Scotland and White Rose in Yorkshire.
“Developing CCS more widely is vital if it is to become cost-competitive technology, and I’m excited at the prospect of Grangemouth contributing to the UK’s low carbon future.”
A detailed programme of research and development work will now be undertaken over an 18 month period to advance the engineering design of the project. The findings of the industrial research feasibility work will be shared across industry and academia, increasing understanding of how to develop and deploy CCS at commercial scale.
For the first time, this large scale low-carbon power project aims to combine and integrate state-of-the-art coal gasification, 570 MW power generation, and carbon capture technologies in a single facility. The proposed power station will be fitted with CCS technology designed to capture 90% of CO2 emissions which would then be transported via existing on-shore pipelines and existing sub-sea pipelines for permanent geological storage 2km beneath the North Sea. The funding is in principle and conditional upon agreeing the terms of the grant.