£20m grant for carbon capture

SSE is partnering with Vattenfall of Sweden and Doosan Babcock, a UK-based developer and supplier of carbon-capture technologies, to develop the new facility.

In addition, three UK universities — Edinburgh, Nottingham and Leeds — will take part in the project, which is being co-funded by the Technology Strategy Board (TSB), the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and the Northern Way partnership.

Following a one-year construction and commissioning phase, a two-year research and test programme starting in the first quarter of 2011 will optimise the CO₂ post-combustion amine-scrubbing pilot plant system, which will be installed at the Ferrybridge power station to process a slipstream of the flue gases from burning UK and imported coals and biomass.

Explaining the purpose of the TSB’s support, its chief executive, Iain Gray, said: ’We hope to put the UK in a position to take advantage of the growing global market for CO₂ capture and storage technology. If the UK is to lead in the supply of such technology, it needs to be developed, installed and demonstrated here on a significant scale. This project provides a vital link between research and commercialisation for a technology that can be both installed at new coal and gas power plants and retrofitted to existing plants.’