Pilot plant at Ferrybridge, UK

Vattenfall participates in a CCS project (CCPilot100+) with postcombustion technology at Ferrybridge Power Station in Yorkshire, UK. The main project partners are SSE (Scottish and Southern Energy), the owner and operator of the power plant, and Doosan Babcock, the carbon capture technology supplier. UK governmental support is offered through the Technology Strategy Board and the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

In the CCPilot100+ project, 100 tons of CO₂ per day is captured from a flue gas slipstream corresponding to approximately 5 MW of electric power. The stream is extracted after the newly commissioned flue gas desulphurisation unit at Ferrybridge power station. An amine solvent is used to scrub the flue gas in a packed column, thus absorbing the CO₂ in the process. The solvent is boiled to release the CO₂ in a separate column and subsequently recycled back into the absorber.

Vattenfall has qualified for European funding to build and operate a large-scale demonstration plant based on postcombustion technology at Jänschwalde, Germany. The results from the project at Ferrybridge – about 10 times smaller in scale – will give Vattenfall knowledge of vital importance prior to the Jänschwalde-project, which is planned to be in operation in 2015.

The Vattenfall team contributes actively to the planning and realisation of the project. Our previous R&D experience from various internal and collaborative projects in recent years is brought into the design discussions and staff will be onsite when the two-year period of operation and testing starts in the beginning of 2011.