RWE npower commissions carbon capture and storage testing facilities at Didcot Power Station
RWE npower said today it was completing new facilities at Didcot Power Station, designed to test the capture of Carbon Dioxide. The new test facility will be completed this month. It will enable RWE npower to evaluate the capture of carbon dioxide from gases released after the burning of coal, but also a different approach known as oxyfuel firing.
The company said it would also press ahead with plans to start work next year at Aberthaw in South Wales on the country’s first CO2 pilot plant capturing flue gas direct from a commercially operating power station. Responding to the Government’s consultation, “Towards Carbon Capture and Storage”, which closes today, RWE npower called on Government to address significant challenges such as CO2 transportation and storage which are currently not in the proposals.
It urged government to avoid regulatory and policy pitfalls that would add unnecessary delays to vital investments. RWE npower CEO Andrew Duff said: “The consultation proposals focus on the carbon capture-readiness of power stations but the Government should also be providing the strategic and regulatory framework to underpin a CO2 transportation and storage network. It should also be prioritising an efficient regulatory system for storage sites. 'This process mustn't create further delays to electricity investment. The country needs to develop at least 25 GW of new generation facilities by 2020 and draw on a range of sources like renewables, gas and combined heat and power. Coal will play a reducing, but vital, part to keep supplies secure, reliable and affordable.
“The aim here should be to help accelerate development of a functioning CCS technology that can be integrated into those coal power stations that the country will continue to need. Not to add further areas of delay or regulatory uncertainty regarding the case for new power stations in general.” “RWE npower is at the forefront of developing CCS technology in the UK but there is a great deal more that needs to be done. CCS is currently unproven at the level needed for full scale power generation, but if it can be demonstrated to work, the potential for global CO2 reductions is huge' he said.
Last year npower announced £1.7bn of investments which would halve its carbon intensity by 2015, compared to 1990 levels. The company is constructing a 1650 MW gas power station at Staythorpe in Nottinghamshire, and is awaiting consent to build another, 2000 MW, gas station in Pembroke, West Wales. In July it announced plans for a 45 MW biomass CHP plant at Markinch in Scotland. Npower renewables is awaiting a Government decision on its 750 MW Gwynt-y-mor offshore wind farm.
In August RWE AG announced its planned German 450 MW carbon capture and storage demonstration project would be built at Heurth near Cologne. It will demonstrate a third CCS technology known as Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle, using lignite, Germany’s most common indigenous coal source.
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