The slow journey towards the development of the UK's first large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) plant inched forward this week, after energy firms E.ON Powerfuel and Scottish Power confirmed they have each applied for €180m (£100m) worth of EU funding earmarked for the development of CCS demonstration projects in the UK.
In January, the EU announced that as a result of a budget surplus, it would make €1.25bn available for the development of CCS. The EU package proposed that funding for CCS projects at E.ON's plant at Kingsnorth in Kent, Powerfuel's plant in Yorkshire, the Longannet plant in Fife proposed by Scottish Power, and a site at Tilbury in Essex operated by Npower, could be made available.
Now E.ON, Powerfuel, and Scottish Power have confirmed their applications but Npower declined to comment on whether or not they had also applied for the money, although they did not rule it out.
The Kingsnorth, Longannet and Tilbury stations have also already been shortlisted as part of the UK government's £1bn competition to fully fund a post-combustion CCS plant, alongside a site in Didcot submitted by a consortium led by DONG Energy.
The Hatfield site was excluded from the competition on the grounds that it plans to use pre-combustion CCS technology.
According to a new study from WWF released in May, Longannet power station is the best option for UK government trials looking at capturing carbon emissions.
E.ON has been lobbying hard for Kingsnorth to be awarded the government funding as it continues to seek planning approval for a proposed new coal-fired plant at Kingsnorth. The company has argued that the site could sit at the centre of a CCS hub for the South East, capable of capturing emissions from a number of industrial sites and pumping them beneath the North Sea.
"The South East has the highest level of energy demand in the UK and we expect this to continue, particularly as we look to the electrification of transport," said Andy Read, clean coal business development manager at E.ON UK. "So the development of a proposal such as this represents a truly world-leading opportunity for the region and for the country as a whole."
However, according to a recent study from WWF released in May, Longannet power station is the best option for UK government trials looking at capturing carbon emissions.
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