The Net Zero Teesside (NZT) Power project – which aims to be one of the world’s first commercial scale gas-fired power stations with carbon capture – has received UK government development consent.
The Secretary of State for Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) has given the rubber stamp, following a recommendation from the Planning Inspectorate (PINS).
NZT Power is a combined-cycle gas turbine electricity generating station with an abated capacity of up to 860 megawatts output with carbon dioxide (CO2) capture plant.
The NEP project includes a CO2 gathering network on Teesside to transport captured CO2 from industrial emitters; a CO2 gathering/booster station to receive the captured CO2 from the gathering network and from NZT Power; and the onshore section of a CO2 transport pipeline for the onward transport of the captured Net CO2 to the offshore Endurance store.
The granting of development consent, following several stages of consultation, comes after NZT Power was named on the Track 1 Negotiations Project List by DESNZ as part of Phase 2 of the Cluster Sequencing process for Carbon Capture Usage and Storage (CCUS).
The project is now conducting negotiations for support through the relevant Business Models to enable a final investment decision in September 2024 or before.
NZT Power, a joint venture between bp and Equinor, could generate up to 860 megawatts of flexible, dispatchable low-carbon power equivalent to the electricity requirements of around 1.3 million UK homes. Up to 2 million tonnes of CO2 per year will be captured at the plant, and then transported and securely stored by the NEP in subsea storage sites in the North Sea.
NEP – a joint venture between bp, Equinor, and TotalEnergies – is the CO2 transportation and storage provider for the East Coast Cluster (ECC).
The Teesside onshore NEP infrastructure will serve the Teesside-based carbon capture projects – NZT Power, H2Teesside and Teesside Hydrogen CO2 Capture – that were selected for first connection to the ECC by DESNZ in March 2023 as part of the UK’s cluster sequencing process for carbon capture usage and storage (CCUS). Around 4 million tonnes of CO2 per year from these projects will be transported and stored from 2027.
Ian Hunter, Managing Director, NZT Power, said the granting of a Development Consent Order is an important step towards the development of the UK’s first full-scale integrated power and carbon capture project.
Louise Kingham, bp’s UK Head of Country and Senior Vice President, Europe, said the consent is another ‘major milestone’.
She said, “This first-of-a-kind project has the potential to deliver low-carbon flexible power equivalent to the electricity requirements of around 1.3 million UK homes and can help secure Teesside’s position at the heart of the country’s energy transition.
“These moments bring us closer to our goal of supporting the UK government’s commitment to fully decarbonise the power system in the UK by 2035 and will help to enable greater deployment of renewable power by providing flexible, dispatchable low-carbon electricity.”
Grete Tveit, Senior Vice President at Equinor, said the announcement is an important step forward for the decarbonisation of industrial regions in the North of England, which is essential if the Government is to meet its Net Zero targets while future-proofing industries and creating new jobs.
source: gasworld.com