Carbon News

Friday 29 May 2009

Longannet is the Britain's second largest coal fired power station, and Europe's third largest

ScottishPower has today flicked the switch on a test project that will see carbon emissions extracted from a British power station for the first time.

The energy giant is using a carbon capture and storage (CCS) prototype to extract carbon dioxide from its 2.3GW Longannet coal-fired plant in Fife, currently in the running for the government's CCS competition (see this New Energy Focus story).

A spokesman for the firm told New Energy Focus that the mobile test unit, which will operate on 1MW of Longannet's capacity, will be at the site for seven months before the firm begins work on delivering a full CCS demonstration project by 2014.

Meanwhile Iberdrola, ScottishPower's Spanish parent company, has announced it will be establishing a Carbon Capture and Storage Centre of Excellence in the UK.

Longannet tests

The carbon capture prototype, developed by Aker Clean Carbon, is an exact, small-scale replica of a full-scale carbon capture plant.

It will allow ScottishPower to test the complex chemistry involved in capturing carbon dioxide from power station flue gases.

By retrofitting the technology to an existing power station, ScottishPower believes it is well-placed to kick-start a carbon storage industry for the Central North Sea by 2014.

Today Prime Minister Gordon Brown commended the project, describing the switch-on as a "historic day for the company and the country".

He added: "This represents a significant response by ScottishPower to the climate change agenda, and it is one I welcome. I hope that the research emerging from the mobile test unit project will make a major contribution to achieving our shared aims."

Prototype

The prototype mobile test unit weighs 30 tonnes and covers an area of 85 square metres and will be able to process 1000 cubic metres of exhaust gas per hour from Longannet.

Amongst other tests being carried out, ScottishPower scientists will be monitoring the effectiveness of the chemical amine solution that captures the carbon dioxide under different conditions.

The data will allow ScottishPower to better understand the science of carbon capture technology, before a full-scale demonstration project is built.

Nick Horler, chief executive of ScottishPower, said: "It's about taking the concept of CCS out of the lab and making it a full-scale commercial reality and that's crucial if we hope to achieve tough carbon reduction targets."

"The test unit uses the exact same technology that we aim to retrofit to the station for a commercial scale CCS project by 2014, and the leap from 1MW to 330MW is now within sight," he added. "There are over 50,000 fossil fuel power stations in operation throughout the world, and by proving that CCS technology can be retrofitted to existing stations, we can begin to address the carbon lock-in from these power plants."

Environmental campaigners WWF Scotland, which this week called for the government to fund CCS trials at Longannet (see this New Energy Focus story), also welcomed the tests.

Attending the launch at Longannet today, Dr Richard Dixon, Director of WWF Scotland said: "CCS technology needs to be proven and the UK Government has been slow to get anything going on the ground."

He added: "Our own research confirms that Longannet is an obvious place to try out carbon capture. All credit to ScottishPower for putting their money where their emissions are."

Centre of Excellence

ScottishPower's parent company Iberdrola has also committed to establishing a global Centre of Excellence to develop CCS technology in the UK.

To launch this, the company announced today that it will be funding a Chair in Carbon Capture and Storage at the University of Edinburgh that will provide a academic focus for the Centre of Excellence.

Chairman of Iberdrola and ScottishPower, Ignacio Galán, said: "We believe that the UK can lead the world with CCS technology. There is the potential to create an industry on the same scale as North Sea Oil, and we will invest in Scotland and the UK to help realise this potential. Iberdrola will set-up its global Centre of Excellence for CCS in the UK to help accelerate the deployment of full-scale CCS.

He added: "This prototype carbon capture unit is a major step on the road towards our Centre of Excellence and the essential data from the unit will shape our research."

The CCS Chair will be located in the Carbon Capture and Storage Group within the School of Geosciences, part of an alliance between the University of Edinburgh, Heriot Watt University and the British Geological Survey, known as the Scottish Centre for Carbon Storage.

ScottishPower has selected the University of Edinburgh to host its CCS Chair as a result of strong ties developed over the past 3 years working on collaborative CCS research and development projects.

Under the umbrella of the Scottish Centre for Carbon Storage, the University of Edinburgh led the work of the Scottish Regional Study that recently published an in-depth report highlighting the Central North Sea's potential to store all of Europe's CO2 emissions well into the next century.

ScottishPower will also engage with other academic institutions to which they have ties, including Imperial College London.