United Kingdom – SSE Thermal and Equinor have formally submitted two low-carbon projects to the Government’s Cluster Sequencing Process, demonstrating their commitment to net zero.
SSE Thermal is partnering with Equinor to build two new power plants, one in the Humber region and the other in the north-east of Scotland, both with carbon capture technology to reduce CO2 emissions.
Storing CO2
The CO2 from the Keadby 3 Carbon Capture Power Station would be stored in the Southern North Sea via shared pipelines developed by the Zero Carbon Humber and East Coast Cluster partnerships. Meanwhile, the Acorn Project’s Peterhead Carbon Capture Power Station, on the Aberdeenshire Coast, would decarbonize Scotland’s only major thermal generation site by transporting and storing captured emissions via pipelines.
The two low-carbon power stations in Keadby and Peterhead would capture up to three million tonnes of CO2 per year in total, accounting for 10% of the UK Government’s 2030 target. They’re part of SSE’s Net Zero Acceleration Program, and the submission shows significant progress toward the company’s goals.
Ten Point Plan
The UK government pledged to deploy carbon capture technology in two industrial clusters by the mid-2020s, and two more clusters by 2030, as part of its Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution. The UK government announced two ‘Track 1’ clusters that will be supported to develop vital carbon capture and storage infrastructure in Phase 1 of the Cluster Sequencing Process. In ‘Track 1,’ the East Coast Cluster was named, with the Scottish Cluster serving as a reserve cluster.
The government will consider individual emitter projects within the clusters as part of Phase 2 of the process. Projects selected in Phase 2 of the Cluster Sequencing Process will be considered first for funding. Around May 2022, a decision is expected. In the Humber, SSE Thermal and Equinor are also collaborating on two more projects. Keadby Hydrogen would be the world’s first hydrogen-fueled power plant, and Aldbrough Hydrogen Storage, in East Yorkshire, would be one of the world’s largest hydrogen storage facilities.
