The memorandum of understanding provides for the UK-China Guangdong CCUS Centre (GDCCUSC), New Silk Road Energy and CO2DeepStore to jointly identify Chinese investment for the Acorn carbon capture and storage project in North East Scotland.
GDCCUSC and Aberdeenshire-based CO2DeepStore will also jointly facilitate two-way knowledge transfer between Acorn and the Guangdong Offshore Carbon Capture and Storage Project (GOCCUS), two flagship projects in the UK and China respectively.
Project developer CO2DeepStore Ltd. invests in the development of CCS projects to support mitigation of climate change and currently hosts the Acorn CCS project development in the Grampian region.
New Silk Road Energy – which has an office in Edinburgh – is responsible for the project in the UK for funding and commercial promotion, including the establishment of new Silk Road Energy Fund and the promotion of small and medium enterprises in the UK to enter the Chinese market.
China Resources Power recently made the final investment decision to build an advanced CO2 capture technology testing project at Haifeng power plant in Guangdong Province, next to a 1000MW 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.
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