CO₂DeepStore sign multiparty MoU with China to explore investment in the Acorn CCS project in North East Scotland

CO₂DeepStore sign multiparty MoU with China to explore investment in the Acorn CCS project in North East Scotland

Full press release: Sino-British organizations to explore the construction of energy and climate change innovation and financing platform

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) provides for the UK-China Guangdong CCUS Centre (GDCCUSC), New Silk Road Energy and CO₂DeepStore to jointly identify Chinese investment for the Acorn CCS project in North East Scotland following China’s Belt and Road initiative.

GDCCUSC and CO₂DeepStore will also jointly facilitate two-way knowledge transfer between the Acorn CCS Project and the Guangdong Offshore Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage Project (GOCCUS), two flagship projects in the UK and in Guangdong, China respectively.

The GOCCUS Project is a phased CCS development which includes capturing CO₂ from a conventional power plant with post-combustion capture and CO₂ from other high concentration sources with pre-combustion capture and storing the CO₂ in an offshore geological site. On 17 March 2017, China Resources Power made the final investment decision to build an advanced CO₂ capture technology testing project at Haifeng power plant in Guangdong Province China, next to the 1000MW ultra-supercritical coal-fired power plant. The test centre will be the first multiple CCS technology test centre in Asia, and the fourth large-scale CCS technology test centre in the world, after Norway TCM, US NCCC, Canada SaskPower innovation centre projects. The project is expected to start operation in 2018.

The Acorn Project is a small scale full chain CCS project in North East Scotland. CO₂ will be captured from existing emissions at the St Fergus gas terminal, which would otherwise enter the atmosphere. CO₂ will then be transported offshore and injected deep underground for permanent sequestration in a saline formation. The Acorn CCS project will re-use existing oil and gas infrastructure which is now redundant, thus reducing project costs. On its current timetable the project could be operational before 2022 and is planning to capture about 200,000T/y of CO₂ in Phase 1. Acorn also acts as a seed from which CCS in the UK can grow by adding CO₂ from other local sources, from industrial and power sources in Central Scotland transported via existing pipelines and by importing CO₂ by ship via Peterhead Harbour. Additional offshore transport and storage infrastructure can easily be developed, re-using additional oil and gas pipelines and developing storage sites deep underground below the Central North Sea, where data exists from the UK’s rich oil and gas heritage and there are many large-scale storage reservoirs. The ground-breaking Acorn Project is set to move forwards after recently being awarded funding from the EU.

For more information, visit the CO₂DeepStore website.