Cleaner, greener future for British coal plants
Drax, Britain’s largest coal-fired power station, is set to become one of Europe’s biggest renewable electricity generators today.
Britain’s largest coal-fired power station is set to become one of Europe’s biggest renewable electricity generators today, with the potential for new future generation on the site to be based on truly clean coal.
Energy and Climate Change Secretary Edward Davey opened the Drax coal-to-biomass conversion plant, and announced the Government was awarding funding to further the White Rose CCS project, also based at the site.
At Drax, the £700 million planned conversion project will burn wood pellets rather than coal. Drax calculates that this will reduce carbon emissions by 80 per cent compared to coal. The facilities opened today will provide enough low carbon power to supply the equivalent of around 1 million homes, and help to safeguard 1,200 jobs and many more in the supply chain and in local communities.
Today 40% of our electricity comes from coal. 20% is from old nuclear. Most of that is due to come off line in the next decade.
We need to fill this emerging energy gap with low-carbon electricity that will keep the lights on, bring bills down and reduce emissions to tackle climate change.
So we need a mix – of renewables (biomass and coal to biomass conversions, onshore and offshore wind and solar), Carbon Capture and Storage technology, nuclear and some gas.
This will help to protect consumers from price spikes caused by importing expensive gas, and will lower people’s bills in the long-run with households getting £50 off their bills a year by early next year.
The multi-million pound FEED study funding will support the White Rose project, which is designing a c.£2 billion state-of-the-art coal power plant with full CCS that will be able to provide clean electricity to more than 630,000 homes. It also includes the planned development of a CO2 transport and storage network – the Yorkshire Humber CCS Trunkline – which would have capacity for additional CCS projects in the area.
This innovative project has the potential to create up to 2,000 jobs and safely capture 90% of the plant’s emissions.
Together, the two projects could support 3,200 jobs in Yorkshire and the Humber, and provide carbon transport infrastructure to help build a clean energy industry in the region.
Mr Davey said:
“It’s crucial that we safeguard our energy security by generating green electricity on UK soil that protects bill payers from volatile foreign energy imports.
“Our coal industry has powered Britain for more than a century, and today we’re seeing a clear roadmap for its future – whether by converting existing coal plants to cleaner fuels, or building state-of-the-art power stations that mean coal is truly clean. While at the same time creating new green jobs for Yorkshire.
“I’m proud that the UK is at the forefront of developing Carbon Capture and Storage – which could be a game-changer in tackling climate change and provide a huge economic advantage not just to this region, but to the whole country.”
White Rose is the first project to be allocated funds under Government’s £1 billion CCS Commercialisation Programme.
CCS allows the safe removal and permanent storage of carbon dioxide emissions from coal and gas power stations, as well as from industrial processes.
Old and polluting coal plants are being phased out and will be replaced by 2030 with clean coal or sustainably sourced biomass that has been fitted with CCS. We anticipate up to 12GW of CCS could be deployed by 2030, rising to 40GW by 2050. This could well be generating more electricity than total domestic electricity demand, and provide 22% of the UK’s energy by 2050.
This will help reduce emissions to tackle climate change and will form a crucial part of the UK’s power mix, alongside renewables and new nuclear.
Notes for Editors
- The FEED study is a programme of detailed engineering, planning and financial work to finalise and de-risk all aspects of the proposal ahead of taking final investment decisions, and proceeding to construction.
- The White Rose proposal is to build a new state-of-the-art 426MW (gross) clean coal power plant with full carbon capture and storage. It will be the largest oxy combustion plant in the world and will also have the potential to co-fire biomass. It will capture approximately 2 million tonnes of CO2 per year, some 90% of all CO2 emissions produced by the plant. The CO2 will be transported through National Grid’s proposed Yorkshire / Humber CCS Trunkline for permanent undersea storage in the North Sea.
- Alstom, Drax and BOC are the project co-developers. The three partners have formed a company called Capture Power limited that would be responsible for the development, implementation and operation of the proposed new plant. As part of this cooperation. Alstom would have responsibility for construction of the power plant together with the CO2 processing unit and BOC would have responsibility for the construction of the air separation unit that supplies oxygen for combustion. Drax would have responsibility for the operation and maintenance (O&M) of the power plant and the CO2 processing facility with BOC having responsibility for the O&M of the air separation unit.
- National Grid would construct and operate a large capacity CO2 transport pipeline and permanent CO2 undersea storage facilities at a North Sea site. This work would take forward a proposal which has benefitted from the European Commission’s European Energy Reform Programme (EEPR) fund.
- Capture Power Limited intend to submit a planning application under the Planning Act 2008 – see the Planning Portal for further details. Any decision on that application will be completely separate from today’s announcement.
- Government is working with industry to create a new cost-competitive CCS industry in the 2020s. Our support for the development of CCS includes:
- A £1 billion commercialisation competition to support practical experience in the design, construction and operation of commercial-scale CCS
- A £125 million, 4-year co-ordinated research, development and innovation programme
- Reform of the UK electricity market so CCS will be able to compete with other low-carbon energy sources
- In October 2013, the Government published an update of its CCS policy, with a vision of three phases of CCS, including a second phase of projects possibly developed on similar timeline to the projects under the Commercialisation Programme
- Negotiations on the Peterhead CCS Project are still under way – they are progressing positively and we hope to make a further announcement on their outcomeshortly.
- The International Energy Agency (IEA) calculates that under their 2°C Scenario , CCS contributes one sixth of global CO2 emission reductions required in 2050, and 14% of the cumulative emissions reduction between 2015 and 2050 compared to a business-as-usual approach.
- The UK is ideally suited to the development of a CCS industry with excellent storage potential in the North and Irish seas, world leading CCS research being undertaken in UK universities and the UK CCS Research Centre, and one of the most favourable policy environments for CCS in the world according to the Global CCS Institute’s (GCCSI) new CCS Policy Indicator.