WRAP UP

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
05/11/12

ON THE INTERNATIONAL FRONT

The United Kingdom has announced that it will move forward on an overhaul of its electricity market, which will likely include a provision to encourage carbon capture and storage by offering project operators long-term financial incentives to sell their electricity produced to the grid. In an annual speech outlining the government’s agenda for the next year, Queen Elizabeth II said earlier this week that an electricity market reform package will soon be introduced in Parliament. “My government will propose reform of the electricity market to deliver secure, clean and affordable electricity and ensure prices are fair,” she said. A white paper released by the Department of Energy and Climate Change last year said that the reform package will likely include a provision for feed-in tariffs with contracts for difference for clean energy projects, including CCS. If passed, the plan would set a fixed price for electricity generated from CCS units, with government agreeing to pay the difference between the market price for electricity and the amount agreed to in the contract. The plan was widely praised by those in the industry, who said it would provide longer-term support for the operational costs of projects, not just capital expenses like most government programs. 

Siemens and the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, a graduate-level university based in the United Arab Emirates, said this week that they successfully completed an R&D project focused on adapting the former’s post-combustion capture technology to natural gas-fired plants and potential CO2 utilization projects in the area. The two said the project focused on evaluating the CO2 purification requirements needed for pipeline transport and enhanced oil recovery using Siemens’ capture technology that utilizes amine acid salt formations to separate CO2 from flue gas. The pair said they are continuing their research partnership with another project that is testing the CO2 capture process’ waste reuse and recycling for future use in the UAE.