According to the company, it has taken a 75% stake in Peel Energy CCS, which was formerly jointly owned by Peel Energy and Dong Energy. The restructured joint venture, with RWE npower’s involvement, has been pre-qualified for the UK government’s carbon capture and storage (CCS) demonstration competition.
Should the project be successful in the competition, it would comprise a capture facility of up to 400MW which would form part of a new cleaner supercritical coal-fired power station. It is proposed that the CO2 would then be transported to disused gas fields in the North Sea where it would be permanently stored. The project could be up and running by 2014.
In addition, the partnership between RWE npower, Peel Energy and Dong Energy brings together the expertise needed to demonstrate the whole process of post-combustion carbon capture (PCC), transport and eventual undersea storage.
Independently RWE npower has already commissioned a separate test facility at its Didcot coal-fired power station in Oxfordshire, capturing CO2 using both post-combustion (PCC) and oxyfuel carbon capture methods. RWE npower is also due to begin construction of a CCS pilot plant at its Aberthaw coal-fired station in Wales next year.
RWE npower is an integrated UK energy company and is part of the RWE Group. The company delivers service generation, asset management and supply to the UK energy market.
