RWE npower says that the construction of a pilot carbon capture and storage (CCS) plant at Aberthaw power station in Wales is vital for the development of the technology and has pledged to increase the capacity of the proposed project.
The UK-based utility is to triple the size of the CCS pilot from 1 MW to 3 MW and is aiming to submit a planning application for the project in the coming weeks. The company is making a number of major investments across Europe to reduce its carbon intensity and says that the commercialization of CCS technology is an “important part of the jigsaw” of future energy requirements.
The £8.4 million Aberthaw project will be the UK’s first pilot plant to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) directly from a commercially operating power station. RWE is aiming to start operations in 2010.
“Although CCS is currently unproven at the level needed for full scale power generation, this project gives us the opportunity both to develop a large scale pilot plant and also to research further the current barriers to potential success,” said Dr Kevin Akhurst of RWE.
RWE has already commissioned a combustion testing facility at Didcot power station, enabling research into the post-combustion CCS processes that will be used at Aberthaw as well as oxyfuel firing technology. Other low-carbon investments being made by the company in the UK include major offshore wind farms, a 2000 MW combined cycle power plant in Wales and a joint venture with German counterpart E.On to build new nuclear capacity.
“In order to find a sustainable solution to the UK’s future energy requirements at an affordable cost, the energy industry must invest in at least 25 GW of new generation facilities by 2020,” said Akhurst. “Whilst continuing to meet growing energy demand, RWE is committed to a strategy of reducing its carbon intensity in the UK by a third from 2000 to 2015.”
RWE has also announced plans to build the world’s first large-scale IGCC plant equipped with CCS in Germany. The 450 MW, EUR2 billion facility could be on-line as early as 2014, says RWE.
RWE’s CCS initiatives are among several major investment programmes being implemented by companies around Europe aimed at commercialising the technology. E.On recently announced that it would investigate the feasibility of installing CCS facilities at the advanced coal-fired Maasvlakte project in the Netherlands that is due on-line in 2012.