Carbon capture study underway

The announcement, made by Ed Miliband, energy and climate change secretary, marks the start of a detailed 12-month design and development study of the ScottishPower-led CCS project.

ScottishPower’s chief executive, Nick Horler, said: ‘The real work of finally making CCS a commercial reality begins today as this funding will now enable ScottishPower to take the technology from the concept to design stage.

‘It will tell us exactly what we need to know so that we can quickly build this new and essential technology. It also puts the UK back at the head of the pack when it comes to delivering full-scale commercial CCS on a global stage.

‘We will deliver our plans to DECC a year from now, putting both us and the UK government in a position to understand exactly what it will take to make CCS a reality by 2014.’

The design and development contract, awarded by DECC will enable engineers from the consortium, which comprises ScottishPower, National Grid and Shell, along with their contracting partners, Aker Clean Carbon and Accenture, to plan what could be the world’s first commercial-scale CCS scheme to be fitted to a coal-fired power plant.