CCS sector development scenarios in the UK - Final report

Abstract:

This report aims to extend the Energy Technology Institute’s (ETI) modelling analysis of the role of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in enabling the UK to meet its carbon budgets efficiently. ETI’s energy system modelling uses robust engineering analysis and cost evidence within its Energy System Modelling Environment (ESME). ESME analysis suggests that without CCS, the cost of reaching UK Climate Change targets will double from a minimum of around £30bn per year in 2050. Apart from its role in power generation, CCS enables flexible low carbon energy by capturing industrial emissions, through gasification applications and by delivering negative emissions in combination with bio-energy.

Enabling CCS to realise its potential and play this key role will require substantial investment in building the sector over the period to 2030. ESME scenarios suggest that acost-optimal 2050 energy system would require building a sector storing ca. 100 million tonnes of CO₂ by 2050. To reach this target requires that the CCS sector and associated infrastructure will need to be extensively developed by 2030, storing ca. 50 million tonnes of CO₂ with ~10 Gigawatts (GW) of power CCS and contribution from industrial sources. Delaying development of this capacity beyond 2030 would expose the UK to substantial cost and deployment risks in meeting carbon budgets.

If delays were to permanently stunt the growth of CCS in the UK the likely impact is a substantial increase in the economic burden of meeting carbon targets, arising from the need to deploy higher cost technologies to cut emissions, particularly in heat and transport. As suggested above, a complete failure to deploy CCS would imply close to a doubling of the cost of carbon abatement to the UK economy from circa 1% to 2% of GDP.

Publication Year:

2015

Publisher:

ETI

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5286/UKERC.EDC.000157

Author(s):

Durusut, E., Slater, S., Murray, S, and Hare, P.