BOC joins Alstom, Drax on flagship CCS project
24 Jan 2012
London – Industrial gases provider BOC is joining Alstom and Drax as a co-developer on the 426 MW oxy-fired carbon capture and storage (CCS) project currently under development at the Drax site in North Yorkshire.
BOC was selected following a competitive process and brings world-leading technology in the field of air separation, as well as complementary plant engineering and integration capabilities from its parent Linde Group that will further enhance the deliverability of the project.
The project will link into the Humber Cluster CO2 transport and off-shore storage network currently under development by National Grid. The key partners in this industry initiative represent Europe’s strongest-ever industrial alliance to fast-track the commercialisation of CCS technologies.
The project is a candidate for NER 300 funding from the EU, following the submission of the project by the UK DECC Office of Carbon Capture and Storage in May 2011.
The developers also intend to apply for support under the forthcoming UK DECC CCS Demonstration Programme. The completed project will demonstrate the technical and commercial viability of CCS as a competitive low-carbon technology and an important part of the post 2020 energy mix in the UK.
“We are confident that the combination of major industrial players now assembled has what’s needed to take CCS from pilot scale to full-scale operation, in what promises to be a flagship project for the UK, Europe and beyond,” said Stephen Burgin, Alstom’s UK president and Peter Emery, Drax’s production director, in a 24 Jan statement.
The European Commissions’s NER 300 is the world’s largest demonstration programme for low-carbon technologies and is named after its funding source, which will be the sale proceeds of 300 million emission allowances held in the New Entrants Reserve (NER) of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS). It aims to encourage private sector investors and EU Member States to invest in commercial low-carbon demonstration projects.
