Pilot system starts capturing CO2 at Drax

UK power generator Drax Group Plc (LON:DRX) said Thursday it has started capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from biomass power generation at its power station, near Selby in North Yorkshire.

Commissioning of the bioenergy carbon capture and storage (BECCS) pilot plant started in November. The facility has now proved that a proprietary solvent developed by CO2 removal specialist C-Capture can be used to isolate the CO2 from the flue gases released when biomass is used to produce electricity.

Drax invested GBP 400,000 (USD 516,800/EUR 456,300) in the pilot. It now captures a tonne of CO2 per day.

Data obtained through the pilot will be analysed to fully understand the potential of the technology and how it could be scaled up at Drax, the company said. Work includes identifying and developing ways to store and use the CO2.

“Working at this scale is really where the engineering gets interesting. The challenge now is to get all the information we need to design and build a capture plant 10,000 times bigger. It’s only really when we get to those sorts of scales that we can start to have an impact on the climate,” said Caspar Schoolderman, Director of Engineering at C-Capture. The company recently raised GBP 3.5 million in an equity funding round led by Drax, BP Ventures and IP Group, which it will use to further develop its technology, undertake larger pilot projects in other industries and grow marketing around the world.

C-Capture is a spin-out from the School of Chemistry at the University of Leeds.

(GBP 1 = USD 1.29/EUR 1.14)

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