The 12-month project will be backed by around £2.5m funds from the UK Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC). It will accelerate the funding process for the selected storage sites.
ETI carbon capture and storage strategy manager Den Gammer said: "Our previous projects have provided information about hundreds of potential stores under the seabed off the coast of the UK.
"This project will initially pick a ‘Top 20’ of stores from the CO2Stored atlas and then from these select a final five which will be analyzed in much greater detail to demonstrate that they are suitable, secure and viable for storing large amounts of CO2.
"This project will build knowledge and with that confidence in sites based in UK waters and provide an economic case for their further development."
As part of the project, the consortium will evaluate stores off the coasts of Aberdeenshire and Yorkshire, to extend the use of capacity and infrastructure developed in the £1bn DECC carbon capture and storage (CCS) commercialization competition.
"Doing it now will help to reduce the risks to potential investors and encourage industry to develop capture projects onshore," Gammer added.
The consortium includes CO2DeepStore, Axis Well Technology and Costain.
ETI is a public-private partnership between BP, Caterpillar, EDF, Rolls-Royce and Shell and the UK Government.
