Power giant Drax has secured half a million pounds of government funding to develop a second carbon capture pilot as it positions itself as a world leader in the fight against climate change.
The huge transition from one of the biggest coal burners to potential ‘net zero’ flagship will be aided by an innovative fuel cell front end engineering design study to assess feasibility.
Drax Group will explore the potential to use molten carbonate fuel cells as a technology. It would be used to produce power at the same time as capturing carbon dioxide from Drax’s flue gases, produced during the biomass-to-energy process it has switched too in recent years.
A neighbouring horticultural site close to the plant, near Selby, North Yorkshire, will use the CO2 to improve yields and demonstrate how businesses working together in clusters can deliver climate solutions.
Will Gardiner, Drax Group chief executive, said: “We believe fuel cell technology could help us to meet the rise in global demand for electricity, whilst capturing the carbon dioxide produced during its generation.
“Our FEED study will help us to understand the technical and economic feasibility of fuel cells, with a view to scaling the technology up, whilst showing that clusters of businesses working together to deliver climate change solutions, can also deliver benefits for their business.”
The funding is part of a £26 million roll-out announced by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy today. It would tag on to the existing C-Capture pilot, providing a use for the CO2, which is preferable to final storage.
That programme has secured a further £4.9 million.
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Chris Skidmore, Energy and Clean Growth Minister, said: “Cutting edge technology to capture carbon will cut emissions as we work towards a net zero economy while creating new jobs – a key part of our modern Industrial Strategy.
“This innovative project from Drax represents a major milestone in efforts to roll-out carbon capture at scale by the 2030s.”
The technology developed by US-based FuelCell Energy captures the CO2 from an external flue gas stream while also generating electricity. This gives the technology a potential advantage over solvent-based systems, which can consume heat and electricity in order to operate.
“Carbon capture using FuelCell Energy’s solution is a potential game-changer for affordability and efficiency of concentrating and capturing carbon dioxide from emitters,” said
Tony Leo, executive vice president and chief technology officer at FuelCell Energy. “We are pleased to have the opportunity to partner with Drax and BEIS for such an innovative and critically important subject as cleaner energy.”
Tomatoes and other salad crops will be grown in huge greenhouses owned by P3P Partners which are next to Drax Power Station.
Philip Elborne, business development manager at P3P Partners LLP said: “We are really excited to be working with Drax on their fuel cell carbon capture project. We pride ourselves on building and operating high quality, efficient combined heat and power systems and are committed to delivering the most value to our customers. Being able to utilise CO2 captured from this system into our glasshouses will help us to achieve this while supporting the goal to reduce emissions.”
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Drax Power Station in North Yorkshire is the 海角视频’s largest renewable power generator after converting two thirds of the plant to use sustainable biomass instead of coal. The majority is shipped in from the US to Port of Immingham, with Hull, Tyne and Liverpool also part of the supply chain, as well as domestic growers.
It is now looking at a range of technologies which could enable it to capture the carbon dioxide released from the combustion of biomass to become the world’s first negative emissions power station – including a huge pipeline proposal for the Humber, with Equinor and National Grid Ventures. It could bring a huge economical boost through the infrastructure requirement, with the ‘Energy Estuary’ home to some of the engineering specialists when it comes to high performance vessel and tube systems.
The Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering have estimated that bioenergy carbon capture and storage (BECCS) could enable the 海角视频 to capture 50 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year by 2050 – approximately half the nation’s emissions target.
The study will be completed at Drax later this year.