Drax Power bid shortlisted for Government funding (From York Press)

Drax Power's CCS bid shortlisted for Government funding

10:37am Tuesday 30th October 2012 in Business news By Julie Hayes, Business editor

A BID by Drax Power to store carbon dioxide under the North Sea to reduce pollution, has been shortlisted in a Government competition to win £1 billion of funding.

The White Rose Project, which has been set up by Capture Power, a consortium including Drax, Alstom, BOC and National Grid, would develop carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology at a proposed new 426 megawatt power station next to Drax's current power station near Selby.

The plant will burn coal and will also be able to burn biomass, such as willow or straw, to meet the equivalent power needs of more than 630,000 homes, with 90 per cent of the carbon dioxide emissions to be captured and stored deep beneath the North Sea seabed.

Research commissioned by the Yorkshire and Humber CCS Cluster Steering group showed that if their bid for investment is successful, the White Rose Project could deliver £530 million and 3,500 jobs to the UK economy.

It is one of four bids to go through to the next stage of the funding process, which aims to develop the technology to remove and store of harmful carbon emissions from coal and gas plants.

The four were selected from eight bids received after a thorough evaluation process that considered project deliverability, value for money, and the Government’s timetable to deliver a cost-competitive CCS industry in the 2020s.

The Government is also supporting the project as one of the prime candidates for a parallel EU funding project.

The successful projects are now being invited to take part in a period of intensive commercial negotiations with Government before decisions on which projects to support further are taken in the new year.

A Capture Power spokesperson said: "The Government has made a thorough assessment of the bids it received and we are pleased that they have recognised the strong potential of the White Rose CCS Project. We now intend to work with the Government on the next phase of assessment for UK funding."