Flexible CCS Network Development (FleCCSnet)

This project will produce and disseminate the first design and operating guidelines for the flexible operation of CCS pipeline networks. The research will explore how CCS pipeline networks can react effectively to short, medium and long term variations in the availability and flow of CO₂ from capture plants, as well as responding to the constraints imposed on the system by the ability (or otherwise) of CO₂ storage facilities to accept variable flow. The work will develop relevant scenarios for modelling the likely variability of CO₂ flow in a CCS pipeline network, develop hydraulic models of CO₂ behaviour, engage stakeholders in the process through practitioner workshops, and deliver guidelines to the industry and other interested stakeholders.

The first Flexible CCS Network Development (FleCCSnet) workshop was held on the 30 April 2014 at the University of Edinburgh, UK. It was the first of two workshops aimed to bring together leading industrialists and academic experts to discuss future scenarios of flexible CCS networks. Read the blog here

Meeting notes and a summary of scenarios have been produced from the first workshop. 

Read other blogs about this project, here and here. 

The second FleCCSNet workshop was held at Newcastle University on the 18 May 2015. The theme of the workshop was “Investigating transient pipeline operation issues” and further details are available here. A blog on the event is here.

Project research completed at the end of August 2015 and its final report was submitted early February 2016. The final blog can be read here (or below). The guidelines are planned to be completed and published at the end of 2016.

Project Outputs

• Developing CO₂ networks: Key lessons learnt from the first Flexible CCS Network Development (FleCCSnet) project workshop. Report from the first Flexible CCS Network Development (FleCCSnet) project workshop, Edinburgh, 30 April 2014
• Enhanced operating flexibility and optimised off-design operation of coal plants with post-combustion capture. Paper presented at GHGT-12, Oct 2014 and published in Energy Procedia 63
• Flexibility Issues in CCS Networks: Initial Findings from the Fleccsnet Project. Project update presented by Hamed Aghajani, Newcastle University, at the UKCCSRC Cranfield Biannual Meeting, 22 April 2015
• ​Operational flexibility options in power plants with integrated post-combustion capture. Paper published in the International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, in print Jan 2016, online 12 February 2016 
• See bottom of page for project blogs.