3 March 2010 - Two UK coal fired power plants, E.ON's controversial Kingsnorth project and Iberdrola Scottish Power's Longannet, are to be given government support that could be worth tens of millions of pounds to develop technology for storing carbon dioxide emissions, according to the Financial Times.
The government is thought likely to commission two consortia to work on the plans – one led by German-owned E.ON for Kingsnorth, in Kent, and one led by Scottish Power, owned by Iberdrola of Spain, for its Longannet plant in Fife. Each company is likely to be given funding in the low tens of millions of pounds to meet the cost of drawing up plans.
The consortia led by E.ON and Scottish Power are the last remaining participants in a competition for the prize of an undetermined sum of public money to support construction of a demonstration plant on a modest commercial scale. Although much of the technology needed to capture carbon dioxide from power plants and store it underground is already available, there are questions over whether it can be developed for widespread use, and over its expense.
Because Longannet is an existing plant that would be retrofitted with carbon capture, it could be ready well before Kingsnorth. However, E.ON this week set out a plan for collecting the carbon dioxide from a “cluster” of power stations serving south-east England, which could be an attractive feature of its proposal.
The proposed plant at Kingsnorth has been the subject of repeated protests by environmental campaigners because of plans by E.ON to build the first new coal fired power station in Britain for decades.
A provision of the energy bill passing through parliament would allow for a levy on consumer bills to pay to install the technology. The levy could raise GBP9.5bn ($14.3bn), Ed Miliband, the secretary of state for energy and climate change, said. CCS development would “require the right combination of private sector and government investment”, he added.
Although Mr Miliband would not be drawn on the details of the imminent announcement, he promised that it would be accompanied by a strategy paper dealing with how carbon could be captured from other parts of industry, beyond the coal-fired power plants that have been the main focus so far.
