Exclusive: UK government poised to set out CCS rules

The UK government will make an announcement in the next few weeks on what power companies must do to ensure their plants are ready to be fitted with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) in the future, completing the groundwork for the long-anticipated decision on whether to approve plans for a new generation of coal-fired power stations.

Speaking to BusinessGreen.com on the sidelines of the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, Bronwen Northmore, director of cleaner fossil fuels policy in the UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change, said that a decision on what constitutes a "carbon capture ready" plant was in the pipeline.

"We've been consulting on capture readiness in the past few months and we'll be making a policy announcement in the next few weeks," she said.

The government has said previously that it will only grant approval for new coal-fired power plants, including the proposed plant at Kingsnorth Kent if they are "carbon capture ready".

However, last year Kingsnorth developer E.ON asked the government to delay its final decision on the proposed plant until after it had an official definition for "carbon capture ready" amidst fears that any decision could face legal challenges without clear evidence that CCS technology could be fitted as soon as it is proven to work.

Speaking last April a spokesman for the energy giant said an official definition for carbon capture ready was essential before work on the site could begin. "We have our definition, which basically means that the pipe work is in place to capture the carbon and you have neighbouring land available to install the technology, but we need confirmation that that is OK," he said.

Until now the government has been wary of specifying exactly what "capture ready" means because CCS technology – which takes carbon emissions and stores them underground – is immature and there is some debate as to how much space and carbon storage capacity will be required.

An EU Directive last December did make set out some specifications on capture readiness, but critics say that they were heavily watered down and are unlikely to prove effective at ensuring all new coal-fired plants can have CCS equipment fitted.

Northmore said that the government had undertaken a separate study on carbon capture rediness, which it will use to inform its final decision.