PLANS to build a carbon capture and storage facility at Drax power station have moved a step closer after the Government announced it has submitted the scheme for European funding.

A joint statement by Alstom UK, Drax Power and National Grid, welcomed the announcement that their joint proposal had been forwarded to the European Investment Bank for consideration for funding.

The consortium said it could help support National Grid’s development of a cluster of CCS projects in the Humber area.

Yorkshire Forward subsidiary CO2 Sense said a regionwide CCS network could create more than 55,000 jobs in the next ten years in the low carbon economy. The Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has submitted 12 projects for consideration in the European Union’s 4.5 billion euro fund to support carbon capture and storage, which involves stripping carbon dioxide from burning coal and securing it underground rather than releasing it into the atmosphere, and other innovative renewable projects.

A maximum of three projects per member state will succeed.

Drax Power, Alstom UK and National Grid Carbon propose to build a 426MW CCS demonstration project at Drax’s Selby site, based on oxy-firing technology.

As part of the project, National Grid, together with an experienced offshore partner, will develop a transportation system to the southern North Sea, where the carbon dioxide will be permanently stored.

Seven of the submitted applications are for CCS projects. They also include C.GEN’s proposal for a new integrated gasification combined cycle power station in Killingholme, Yorkshire.

The Don Valley Power Project, in Doncaster, formerly known as the Hatfield Project under Powerfuel, which went into administration last year, was also submitted to the European Investment Bank after being bought by 2Co Energy earlier this week. The bank is expected to make decisions on funding after nine months analysing the proposals. The UK Government also said it was committed to continuing public sector investment in four CCS projects and aimed to launch a selection process to identify projects for UK funding later this year.