Aker Clean Carbon in final stage of UK CCS competition

The ScottishPower-led Carbon Capture and Storage Consortium, of which Aker Clean Carbon is a contracting partner, has been selected as one of the final bids in the UK Government’s carbon capture and storage competition.

This announcement marks the start of a detailed 12-month design and development study of the ScottishPower-led CCS project.

Jan Roger Bjerkestrand, CEO of Aker Clean Carbon, said: “This contract takes Aker Clean Carbon’s capture technology one step closer to delivering full-scale commercial CCS on a global stage. We are delighted to work with the world’s leading energy companies to develop what could be the world’s first full scale CCS plant.”

ScottishPower’s Chief Executive, Nick Horler said, “We are delighted to have been selected for the final and critical stages of the government’s competition. The real work of finally making CCS a commercial reality begins today as this funding will now enable ScottishPower to take the technology from the concept to design the stage. It will tell us exactly what we need to know so that we can quickly build this new and essential technology.”

The design and development contract, awarded by DECC, will enable engineers from the consortium, which comprises ScottishPower, National Grid and Shell along with their contracting partners, Aker Clean Carbon and Accenture, to plan what could be the world’s first commercial scale CCS scheme to be fitted to a coal-fired power plant.

Over the next 12 months the companies will be able to fully develop their design and engineering plans as well as cost every aspect of the project. Once completed, they will know precisely what it takes to capture and store CO₂ from ScottishPower’s power station at Longannet in Fife, Scotland, and transport it hundreds of miles along existing pipelines, so that it can be stored safely in porous rock formations thousands of metres below the North Sea.

The collaboration between Government and industry in the development and deployment of CCS technology is an essential step in the drive to meet the UK’s CO₂ emissions reduction target of 80 per cent by 2050. Official studies show that the move towards a low-carbon economy, of which CCS is a vital part, will also create thousands of new jobs throughout the country over the next decade and beyond.

ScottishPower’s bid is based upon a retrofit project at Longannet power station. Last year, the company switched-on Aker Clean Carbon’s prototype carbon capture test unit at the power plant - the first time anywhere in the UK that carbon capture technology has been working on a coal fired power station. This will help prove the chemistry of carbon capture and uses the same technology that can be retrofitted by 2014 as part of the UK Government’s CCS competition.

For further information, please contact:
Ivar Simensen, communications officer, Aker Clean Carbon
+47 91 63 00 66 / ivar.simensen@akersolutions.com

Notes to Editors:

• The competition was launched in late 2007 to encourage energy companies to develop commercially viable CCS schemes. There were originally nine entrants. The ScottishPower entry is one of two bids selected by DECC to enter the final stage of the competition before the contract to build the CCS system - which is expected to be awarded in 2011.
• The design and development study contract is also known as the Front End Engineering Design contract (FEED).

• Once operational the capture technology will reduce CO₂ emissions by 90% from a 300MW unit. That would be equivalent to taking one million cars off the road.

• Longannet Power Station Facts first opened in 1969, is the third largest coal fired power station in Europe, and has a net output of 2,304MW of electricity, which is enough to keep the lights on in 2 million UK homes.