Aug-2023

Unlocking the full potential of UK carbon capture and storage

Overcoming challenges to enable rapid growth in carbon capture and storage.

Nigel Greatorex
ABB Energy Industries

Article Summary

Climate change is arguably the most pressing challenge facing humanity, so it stands to reason that solving it requires concerted global action from industry, government, and wider society. There is no silver bullet to the global warming crisis; instead, limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement requires a mix of innovative technologies, investment, and legislation.

It is fair to say that, in terms of its efficacy on an industrial scale, the full potential of carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a solution has not yet been fully realised (National Grid, 2023). The process of capturing carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from industrial processes, or the burning of hydrocarbon in power generation, and transporting it via ship or pipeline before storing it underground needs investment and support to become financially viable and able to scale. The lack of operational and design experience is a major hurdle to mainstream adoption. 

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), planned CCS facilities are growing rapidly on a global scale, yet they still represent only around 20% of what is required for the world to reach net zero by 2050 (IEA, 2022).

According to analysis from McKinsey & Company, for countries to achieve their net-zero commitments, uptake by industry needs to grow 120-fold by 2050 (McKinsey & Co, 2022). If successful, CCS alone could be responsible for reducing CO₂ emissions from the industrial sector by 45%.

Growth in the UK and Europe
Despite the challenges, CCS remains part of many countries’ net-zero road maps, not least in the UK, where the government’s recent Powering Up Britain report reaffirmed its commitment to CCS, with a £20 billion funding package announced in the Spring Budget (UK Gov, 2023).

The announcement includes the rollout and acceleration of the UK’s first carbon capture sites in Teesside under the North Sea, which the government hopes will be able to capture and store more than 50 million tonnes of CO₂ per year by 2035.

Meanwhile, in Europe, there are encouraging signs that both decarbonisation goals and significant policy support have stimulated development, particularly in the form of industrial clusters connected to CO₂ storage hubs. Around 50 projects could be capturing close to 70 million tonnes of CO₂ per year by 2030 around the North Sea in Norway, the UK, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark (Pernot, 2022).

ABB is already involved in one such project. Norway’s Northern Lights project, a joint venture between Equinor, Shell, and TotalEnergies, is the first industrial CCS project to develop an open and flexible infrastructure to safely store CO₂ from industries in Europe in the North Sea. The first phase will have the capacity to permanently store up to 1.5 million tonnes of CO₂ per year, with the ambition to expand to more than five million tonnes. ABB’s integrated automation, electrical, and digital solutions will enable the remote operation of a new carbon capture terminal and ensure that the facility runs at optimum efficiency.

Challenges to driving scale
At a design level, the biggest cost in CCS is capture. The CO₂ always comes with impurities, which add risk. For example, when water, acids, sulphur oxide, nitrous oxide, and things like methanol and glycol are added, these impurities interact and can potentially cause problems during operations.

This means that existing CCS projects need to take conservative design decisions. In Europe, major projects in the later stages of design are wary of using glycol to dehydrate the CO₂; instead, they turn to competing technology, which is $10-$15 million more expensive on a typical application.

By understanding the fluid, a digital twin can be developed that takes into account those impurities and can also monitor and reduce the amount of power needed to pressurise and heat the CO₂. This is important because energy is not always easy to get to on a CCS network. There is not always a source of power at the point of injection or the midpoint of a pipeline or even excess power at the capture source. By deploying a digital twin, operators can be sure the plant is not over-compressing or overheating, resulting in significant Opex savings.

Setting the pace
While companies can see the benefits, there is still a reluctance to invest without clear knowledge of how things will work on the ground at every stage of the process. Reducing the cost of investment and de-risking operations is therefore critical to enable the commercial CCS market to scale.

With this in mind, ABB and Pace CCS, a global leader in engineering solutions for the CCS market, have joined forces to make the capture, transportation, and storage of industrial emissions more accessible. Together, they aim to make it easier for industrial companies to implement CCS infrastructure by lowering the Capex and operational investment required to enter the market.

As mentioned at the outset, issues of scale and an insufficient legislative framework have so far held back progress; however, other issues are at play. One of the biggest challenges to the mainstream adoption of CCS to date has been a lack of operational practice across the value chain.

Digital twins and ABB Ability Optimax
ABB and Pace CCS have developed digital twin technology that provides a virtual replica of a real, physical CCS process or facility. Simulating the design stage and test scenarios to deliver proof of concept gives customers both peace of mind that the system design is fit for purpose and demonstrates how they can smoothly transition into CCS operations. The digital twin models the full value chain of a CCS system –something existing software cannot do.