Scottish Power has linked up with a clean energy subsidiary of Norway’s Aker Solutions to develop on a new CO2 sequestration plant in the UK.
Aker Clean Carbon will act as technology provider within the consortia, which also includes Marathon Oil with Scottish Power, which is now part of Spain’s Iberdrola group, for the new carbon capture and storage (CCS) plant construction competition.
Construction of the CCS plant is due to be completed by 2014 after the UK government’s Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform developed a shortlist of four consortia to take part in the final round of the competition to build the plant, which will be seen as a demonstration project to prove CCS technology.
John Campbell, director of ScottishPower’s Energy wholesale division said his company is committed to developing sustainable and secure energy supplies.
“We recognise that this is likely to require the continued use of fossil fuels from across the world and that CCS has a key role to play in minimising emissions of CO2.”
And he went on: “Once CCS is demonstrated to work at a commercial scale, its potential for contributing to global greenhouse gas reductions is huge. The UK Government’s Competition will play a crucial role in achieving this.”
The other three consortia are led by BP Alternative Energy International, EON UK, and Peel Power Limited. All four remaining consortia were short-listed from a total of nine which entered the competition last November.
Further talks will now take place between the government and the four consortia covering commercial, contractual, technical and financial issues.
The challenge for the successful consortia is to build a plant which will capture 90% of the CO2 emissions from a power generation plant rated to produce between 300 and 400 Megawatts.
Also UK Energy Secretary John Hutton has published a consultation document, “Towards Carbon Capture and Storage” which spells out how the UK government regards CCS as having potential for carbon sequestration. In the document the government also asks for views on promoting CCS in the UK, in the European Union and globally.