Powerfuel's Hatfield CCS plant tipped to win EU funding

The Hatfield power plant in Yorkshire is in the box seat to become the only UK-based carbon capture and storage (CCS) project to win EU funding, after the European Commission reportedly named the site on its shortlist of preferred projects.

News agency Reuters reported that it had obtained a copy of an EU document, which recommends to the EU Parliament that the Hatfield project proposed by Powerfuel should be approved as one of five demonstration plants across the EU to each receive EU funding worth €180m (£164m).

The other schemes to make the shortlist are Vattenfall's Oxyfuel project in Germany, the Rotterdam Hub scheme in the Netherlands, a Polish project in Belchatow and Endesa's OxyFuel project in Spain. A sixth scheme proposed by Enel in Italy is recommended for a smaller subsidy of €100m.

The money is part of a fund set aside by the EU in January to provide a fiscal stimulus to member states' economies in the wake of the recession.

If finalised, the award will mean that E.ON's proposed plant at Kingsnorth in Kent, the Longannet plant in Fife proposed by Scottish Power, and a site at Tilbury in Essex operated by Npower will all have missed out on the EU funding. However, each of the projects remain in the running for the UK government's £1bn competition to fund a post-combustion CCS plant.

Powerfuel's proposal was the only UK site that plans to demonstrate Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle CCS technology where the carbon is removed before the coal is burned.

There were only three such pre-combustion plants being proposed among the 11 plants that applied for the EU funding, with Powerfuel the only successful bidder, according to the Reuters report.

Powerfuel refused to comment on the reports that it is to be recommended for the funding award.

The EU Parliament has four weeks to raise objections and the final list of winners is expected to be published in mid-November.

The funding is part of an EU drive to ensure 12 CCS demonstration projects are in operation by 2015 with a goal of having the technology fully commercialised by 2020.

Last week the European Commission published a report estimating that the public and private sector must invest €13bn in CCS over the next 10 years to bring the technology to market. The report came at the same time as a study from the International Energy Agency estimated that the world needs to build 100 major CCS projects by 2020 and 850 plants by 2030 if carbon emissions are to be stabilised.

Research by the CCS Institute suggests there are 273 CCS projects under way worldwide, but only 64 are on a commercial scale. Of these, only seven are end-to-end operational, and none generate power.