Facts:

Scottish Power is planning to convert the Longannet power plant in Fife, Scotland, to clean coal technology, and is one of two remaining participants in the UK Government’s current competition to develop a commercial scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) project.

Longannet is the third largest coal-fired power station in Europe, generating 2400 MW of electricity. It is located on the upper Firth of Forth, close to the Central North Sea – an area that the best science shows is ideally suited to CO2 storage.

To enable CCS to be delivered quickly, it has formed a consortium with Aker Clean Carbon, Shell UK Limited (Shell), Marathon Oil and National Grid. The consortium is currently operating a 1 MW carbon capture prototype at Longannet, which was installed in May 2009 and has run for more than 2000 hours. Scottish Power is the only energy company in the UK that is capturing carbon on a working coal-fired power station.

The prototype is helping to prove the chemistry of carbon capture and uses the same technology that can be retrofitted to the tens of thousands of coal-fired power stations worldwide. According to Scottish Power, once fully operational, the project will provide the information needed in order to scale it up and eventually capture up to 90% of CO2 emissions from Longannet.

Partner Aker Clean Carbon are responsible for the capture technology. National Grid is the owner and operator of the UK’s gas pipeline system and has expertise in high-pressure pipelines. Edinburgh University will assist in the identification of long-term storage in sub-sea rocks. If the competition bid is successful and the proposal goes ahead, CCS technology could be operating at a commercial scale by 2014.

The other remaining participant in the UK’s CCS competition is E.ON with its plans for a new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth in Kent, which features CCS.

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