On 8 April 2010, the Energy Bill received Royal Assent becoming Energy Act 2010. It implements some of the key measures required to deliver DECC's low carbon agenda.
The Bill follows on from the low carbon transition plan, published in July 2009. This plan aims to deliver emissions cuts of 34 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020 and of 80 per cent by 2050, while maintaining security of supply, maximising economic opportunities and protecting vulnerable consumers. The Bill will deliver some of the primary legislation required by the plan.
The Act will also have much to say for the development and establishment of CCS. A levy on the energy price have been adopted, to secure funding for CCS.
This is a good example that one can apply political instruments and on a national level, that ensures capture and storage of CO2, in ZEROs opinion.
UK simultaneously introduce a competition to launch four small scale and potentially four large-scale projects. It also seem that the Parliament will announce yet another round of competition at the end of 2010. The Programme will seek to demonstrate both pre- and post-combusiton capture technologies (which could include oxyfuel) with a maximum of two projects demonstrating post-combustion capture.
The Bill creates a new CCS Levy that will be charged on electricity supplies. The levy will be paid by electricity suppliers to the administrator, Ofgem, with the contribution of each supplier based on their share of the GB electricity supply market– delivering a new financial incentive to bring forward four commercial scale demonstration projects on coal-fired power stations and to support the retrofit of additional CCS capacity to those projects should it be required at a later date.
The detail of these schemes will in part be set out in regulations and will be consulted on alongside the detail of the levy mechanism in Summer 2010. The CCS Incentive payments will be linked to the carbon dioxide abated by the project.
more information
http://www.decc.gov.uk/energy_act_2010/
http://www.decc.gov.uk/media/ccsfactsheet.pdf
