Companies secure investment from government's £26 million carbon capture and storage funding pot

A total of £26 million has been awarded to nine companies to accelerate rollout of carbon capture and storage as UK moves to a net zero emissions economy.

Two companies from across the region are celebrating winning part of a total of £26 million of government funding for the UK’s largest carbon capture project to date to remove 40,000 tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere each year,

In total, nine companies have secured £26 million of government funding, in addition to industry backing, to advance the rollout of carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) in the UK - a crucial step towards the UK’s net zero emissions and the end of the UK’s contribution to global warming.

Origen Power, based in Oxford, has developed technology with the potential to reverse climate change. The company has been awarded 249,000 towards a £356,000 Oxy-Fuelled Flash Calciner Project.

Progressive Energy, based in Stonehouse, Gloucestershire, is an established independent UK clean energy company. It has been awarded £494,626 toward a £765,500 project in partnership with HyNet Industrial CCS.

HyNet is an integrated hydrogen and carbon capture, usage and storage (CCuS), which will supply fuel for multi-vector energy generation. The focus of the project is upon the supply of hydrogen to a set of major industrial gas users, along with provision of a blend of hydrogen (with natural gas) to the gas network at a level that requires no disruption to (household or commercial) consumers. The project also considers how major power generation sites might be fuelled by hydrogen along with providing the network to facilitate distribution of hydrogen for the mobility sector, which is being developed under the HyNet Motion programme.

The project is being developed by Progressive Energy in partnership with Cadent Gas (formerly National Grid Gas Distribution). The project was formerly launched in May 2018 in Manchester by the Metro-mayors for Liverpool and Manchester, Steve Rotherham and Andy Burnham, with a subsequent parliamentary event in Westminster in July 2018.

Progressive was formed in 1998 to commercialise key energy conversion technologies including coal gasification (alongside carbon capture and storage), novel waste to energy, and biomass conversion. The company is currently engaged in a series of projects to decarbonise the gas network with hydrogen and/or bio-synthetic natural gas (bioSNG). Much of its work is also now focused on the deployment of new energy storage technologies to alleviate constraints on the electricity grids and to reduce costs for industrial power consumers.

The awards were announced by Energy and Clean Growth Minister Chris Skidmore on a visit to Tata Chemicals Europe’s plant in Winnington, Cheshire. The plant, which is the UK’s only manufacturer of soda ash and sodium bicarbonate, is being awarded £4.2 million toward the construction of a facility to capture and utilise 40,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year – the equivalent of 22,000 cars.

When fully operational in 2021 it will be the largest carbon capture plant in the UK, removing 100 times more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than the country’s current largest facility.

Chris Skidmore said: “If we are to become a net zero emissions economy and end our contribution towards global warming, then innovative schemes like Tata Chemicals’ will be essential. Their plans demonstrate the enormous potential that CCUS has, reducing our emissions and helping companies to innovate and export products all around the world.”