The institute, whose backers include Royal Dutch Shell Plc and the British government, said it will work with engineering company Costain Group Plc to construct a pilot plant at a coal-fired power station. It will capture as much as 95 percent of its carbon dioxide output and is scheduled to be built, operated and tested by mid-2015, the company said in a statement.
Carbon capture and storage gathers carbon dioxide that is released in power generation and stores it underground. The pilot plant will physically separate the carbon dioxide from the fossil fuel before combustion, a carbon and capture method called pre-combustion technology.
To be built in two stages, the first will last 16 months and cost £3.5 million. Costain will work with the University of Edinburgh, and Imperial College, London on the first stage, to help understand and optimize performance of the technology.
The institute expects to invest £20 million in the second stage and will involve the plant construction. A potential site has been identified for the facility but E.T.I. declined to say where it is. It is currently reviewing other sites and will be finalized during the first stage of the project.
E.T.I. is also commissioning a project to develop and demonstrate next generation carbon capture technologies specifically for gas-fired power stations. An announcement on who will carry out the work on this project is expected by early 2012.
E.T.I. is a public-private partnership between six international companies including BP Plc, Caterpillar, EDF, E.ON and Rolls-Royce together with the British Government. It is tasked with developing “mass scale” technologies that will help Britain meet its 2020 and 2050 emission targets.
The targets involve cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 34 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050 compared with 1990 levels.
Britain and C.C.S.
Britain, due to close to more than 11,500 MW worth of coal power plants over the next four and a half years, is turning to carbon capture and storage as an option to sustainably meet energy demand while reducing emissions.
Under the European Union’s large combustion plant directive, combustion plants rated over 50 MW must be switched off by the end of 2015.
Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne outlined proposals for the Electricity Market Reform this month. It includes imposing an emissions limit of 450 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour on new power stations to prevent the construction of coal-fed plants without carbon capture and storage.
“We expect all new build coal-fired power stations will require C.C.S. by 2020 and gas-fired power stations will need to be fitted with C.C.S. by 2030,” Dr. David Clarke, E.T.I. chief executive, said.
To date, E.T.I. has invested more than £100 million in offshore wind energy, marine energy, distributed energy, buildings, energy storage and distribution, transport, biomass and carbon and capture since it was formed in 2008.
Analysts from research body Scottish Carbon Capture and Storage said 14 British carbon capture and storage and renewable energy projects have applied for European Union funding of around 4.5 billion euros in February this year.
Seven of these carbon capture projects are for coal-fired power stations and two are for gas power plants.
