Keadby 3 Carbon Capture Power Station

The Keadby 3 Carbon Capture Power Station is planned to be developed in North Lincolnshire, the UK.

Subject to Final Investment Decision (FID) in 2023 and development, the project may become the first power station in the country equipped with carbon capture technology.

Keadby 3 is being jointly developed by SSE Thermal and Equinor.

The project will have a capacity of up to 910MW in electrical output. It will be fuelled by natural gas and will feature a carbon capture facility to remove carbon dioxide from its emissions.

The proposed facility secured a Development Consent Order by the UK Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in December 2022, following a recommendation from the Planning Inspectorate.

The project is expected to reach FID in 2023, and can become operational as early as 2027.

SSE Thermal and Equinor are also collaborating on Peterhead Carbon Capture Power Station, and developing Keadby Hydrogen Power Station, and Aldbrough Hydrogen Storage project.

Location

The proposed development site of Keadby 3 Carbon Capture Power Station is within the wider Keadby Power Station site, near Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire.

The site features the operational Keadby 1 Power Station and the under construction Keadby 2 Power Station.

The immediate surroundings of the site host power related infrastructure, including the operational Keadby Windfarm to the north.

Overall, the proposed development site includes an area of 69.85ha.

Project details

Equipped with a carbon capture plant, the Keadby 3 Power Station will seek to deliver flexible and reliable low-carbon electricity.

The proposed development will include the construction, operation, maintenance and eventual decommissioning of a low carbon Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) generating station.

The project components will include a carbon capture equipped electricity generating station with a CCGT facility and integrated cooling infrastructure, and carbon dioxide capture plant (CCP) with conditioning and compression equipment and carbon dioxide absorption unit(s) and stack(s).

Other infrastructure will include heat recovery steam generator (HRSG), natural gas receiving facility and ancillary facilities including control room, workshops, raw and demineralised water tanks, stores, generator and chemical storage facilities among others.

Additionally, natural gas pipeline will supply the power station including all infrastructure.

The electricity will be exported using the existing National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET) 400kV Substation.

The existing Northern Powergrid Substation on Chapel Lane will be used to supply electricity at up to 132kV to the proposed site.

Operations

At Keadby 3, the hot product gases will enter the gas turbine following combustion and expand to rotate the blades of the turbine and drive an electrical generator.

The usable heat in the gas turbine exhaust is passed through HRSG to make steam and generate additional electricity via a different steam turbine.

The Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) technology will help in removing oxides of nitrogen from the flue gases.

Subsequently, the hot flue gases will enter the integrated CCP, which will capture at least 90% of the carbon dioxide from the generating station.

The gases will be then cooled and passed through absorber column, containing a liquid amine-based chemical solvent. The solvent will remove carbon dioxide from the gas stream.

The captured carbon dioxide will be treated in a gas conditioning facility. It will be then discharged into a Humber Low Carbon Pipeline being developed by the National Grid Carbon as part of the Zero Carbon Humber (ZCH) Partnership.

The carbon dioxide is expected to be transported to an offshore geological storage site under the North Sea to be developed by the Northern Endurance Partnership (NEP).

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is estimated to capture at least 90% of the carbon dioxide emissions and compress and store it in depleted oil and gas fields, preventing it from entering the atmosphere.

Keadby 3 project is estimated to capture around one and a half million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.

Key Contracts

In June 2022, SSE Thermal and Equinor awarded a Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) contract for the proposed Keadby 3 Carbon Capture Power Station to a consortium of Aker Solutions, Siemens Energy and Doosan Babcock.

Aker Carbon Capture will serve as the consortium’s carbon-capture partner.

BiGGAR Economics was engaged to conduct independent analysis to estimate the economic contribution of the project at a local, regional and national level.

DWD, as part of an AECOM led project team, is offering planning and pre-application consultation.