Engie, Uniper Quit Rotterdam's CCS Project

French Engie and German Uniper say they are to quit the Dutch carbon capture and storage (CCS) project, Road. The government says it will seek alternative sponsors for the project.

The Rotterdam demonstration project was an initiative of the two companies. Originally it aimed to capture, starting in 2015, 1.1mn metric tons of CO₂/yr from Uniper's coal-fired power plant Maasvlakte in the Rotterdam port area and to store the captured CO₂ in an almost depleted gas reservoir under the North Sea, and the increased pressure would assist with gas production. 

Road is co-financed by the European Union, the Netherlands and the Global CCS Institute. Worldwide, it would be one of the first projects to realise an integrated chain of CO₂ capture, transport and storage on a large scale. Road was also seen as a project to demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of CCS in power plants and energy-intensive industries. The project partners also hoped that the knowledge and experience acquired within Road could be instrumental in the commercial introduction of CCS, within five to ten years.

Alternatives 

Officially, Engie and Uniper will pull back on September 15. Dutch economy minister Henk Kamp (VVD) says the remaining time will be used to consider possible alternatives. Most of this work will be done by the Rotterdam port authority, he thinks. The port authority, gas transport system operator Gasunie and energy knowledge company EBN are investigating the possibility of developing a collective CO₂-grid along the entire port area.

Kamp himself will find out whether the government can reclaim some of the already paid subsidies. He underlines that stopping Road does not mean that the Netherlands cannot reach its climate targets by 2020, because other efforts have already proved to be sufficient.

"For us also this is disappointing," says Engie-spokesman Michael Verheul. "We have put seven years of hard work in Road. We don't only see a large delay, the main problem is that there isn't a political or a social support platform for CCS at coal-fired power plants, because the government has not taken a decision about the future of the coal-fired power plants yet. A support platform however exists for CCS at energy intensive industrial plants. Therefore, Uniper and Engie are prepared to share the knowledge and experience we built up during the past seven years for free with other parties. We know several companies in the port area are interested." He also states that of the six European CCS-projects started up in 2010 today only Road remains active. 

The view of the energy companies is confirmed by a high ranking EU-official: "The interest in CCS-research is internationally increasing, but currently it is only done in the USA, China, Australia, Norway and Rotterdam. In the current European Union view CCS will be specially useful in combination with energy-intensive industries, such as steel and cement production. Norway is pioneering also the path of waste incineration."

Koen Mortelmans