Completed Clean Energy

CCPilot100+

Funder InnovateUK (part of UKRI)
Recipient organisation Sse Generation Limited
Funding £7.0M
Period Jan 2010 — Apr 2014

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

A pilot plant at a coal-fired power station in Yorkshire is capturing 100 tonnes of carbon dioxide per day from the station’s exhaust gases. The plant, built at SSE’s Ferrybridge site, uses a chemical process called amine scrubbing to strip CO₂ from a small fraction of the flue gas before it reaches the atmosphere. This is the UK’s largest carbon capture pilot and one of the biggest in the world. Its purpose is to test how the technology holds up under real-world, variable power plant conditions—specifically how flexible it is, how quickly the capture chemicals degrade, and how the materials cope. If the test programme, which runs until the end of 2013, shows the technology works reliably, it could accelerate the commercial rollout of carbon capture on both new power stations and existing ones. That matters because coal and gas plants still supply much of the UK’s electricity, and capturing their CO₂ is one of the few ways to keep them running while cutting emissions. The plant also serves as a global showcase for Doosan Power Systems’ capture technology, potentially influencing how other countries retrofit their own power infrastructure.

View original technical description
The CCPilot100+ post-combustion amine scrubbing Carbon Capture plant built at SSE’s existing site at Ferrybridge and retrofitted to one of the coal fired units is a fast-track collaboration between Doosan Power Systems (DPS), as a leading plant and capture technology supplier, SSE and Vattenfall as potential users of post combustion capture, plus academic involvement from four UK universities at the forefront of carbon capture research. Designed, built and commissioned within a relatively short timescale, the plant is capable of removing 100 tonnes of carbon dioxide per day from a one percent slip stream of flue gas from one of Ferrybridge C’s existing four 500MWe coal fired units. The plant is undergoing an extensive test programme, finishing at the end of 2013 to improve understanding of how the technology performs under variable power plant operating conditions, with particular reference to flexibility, amine degradation and materials. This groundbreaking project bridges the gap from research to the commercialisation of carbon capture technology, both for new build power plants and for retrofitting to existing facilities. It is the UK's biggest pilot and one of the largest in the world, providing an important showcase for DPS’s carbon capture technology to customers and partners globally.

View the original record at the funder ↗

Related Research

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Original classification

Large Project

Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.