United Kingdom – Peel NRE has unveiled its plans for a CO2 pipeline network at Protos, a strategic energy and resource hub near Ellesmere Port.
The Protos CO2 network would connect to HyNet North West’s regional CO2 pipeline.
It’s part of a larger strategy for the North West to become one of the first regions to build a carbon capture cluster and achieve net zero emissions by storing greenhouse gases in depleted gas fields off the coast of Liverpool Bay. It comes after the government designated the North West as a Track 1 Carbon Capture, Usage, and Storage (CCUS) cluster with a £1 billion infrastructure fund to begin decarbonizing industry.
CO2 hubs
The Protos network, which could be operational by 2025, would focus on energy generators at Protos, with the potential to expand to capture emissions from other generators and businesses in the industrial corridor between Ellesmere Port and Runcorn and beyond. The project would capture 800,000 tons of CO2 per year, with future phases increasing capacity to more than 1.2 million tons.
Peel NRE has started working on a plan to show how establishing strategic CO2 hubs at the local level can eliminate the need for costly and complicated individual connections to the regional carbon capture pipeline. It will establish a carbon-capture-ready destination for businesses seeking to achieve net zero emissions. It will also look into the possibility of transporting liquefied CO2 from other operations in the North West and neighboring regions that are unable to connect to the planned regional carbon capture pipelines, including via the Manchester Ship Canal and rail.
It follows the Government’s recent announcement of a new commitment to increase hydrogen production and invest in carbon capture in the Energy Security Strategy.
