Critical decade for CCS success

According to a new report by the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI), the UK can implement an affordable transition to a low carbon energy system over the next 35 year, but decisions taken in the next ten will be critical.

The report highlights the enormous potential of CCS and bioenergy to the UK’s future energy system.

The success or failure of deploying these two technologies will have a huge impact on the cost of achieving the UK’s legally binding climate change targets

ETI strategy director Jo Coleman

According to the ETI’s analysis, if either of these technologies do not feature it would at least double the cost of delivering climate change targets from around 1% of GDP to 2%.

Another way of looking at it is the value of CCS or bioenergy to the energy system is £200bn each and if neither are developed it is really difficult to see how the UK would be able to meet its climate change targets, claims the report.

“We see enormous potential and value in developing CCS and bioenergy and the success or failure of deploying these two technologies will have a huge impact on the cost of achieving the UK’s legally binding climate change targets,” said ETI strategy director Jo Coleman.

“Significant policy intervention will be needed to support these technologies along with nuclear, offshore wind and heat networks, which is why decisions taken over the next decade are so important.”

There are currently two major CCS projects being developed in the UK: the 426MW White Rose facility at Drax in North Yorkshire, and Shell and Scottish and Southern Energy’s (SSE) Peterhead CCS in Aberdeenshire.

In addition, plans were announced last month for an industrial CCS network in Teesside.

Links to the ETI report, infographics and a video of Coleman explaining the findings can be found at http://www.eti.co.uk/development-insight/. A pdf of the report is also available above.