Cheshire’s burgeoning green credentials are set to be further enhanced with the expected approval of a pioneering facility.
This facility is designed to extract the equivalent annual carbon dioxide emissions of almost 200,000 vehicles from the atmosphere. For those in the county who are investment planning, Cheshire West and Chester Council is poised to sign off an application for the new carbon capture facility (CCF) at Ellesmere Port’s Protos energy hub.
The plant has been engineered to capture virtually all the flue gas CO2 emissions from the nearby Energy Recovery Facility (ERF) for storage beneath the Irish Sea.
If approved, it will make history as one of the first carbon capture plants linked to an ERF in the UK, processing around 380,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per annum.
Formal authorisation is also being sought separately to install a spur pipeline to connect the Marsh Lane site in Ince with the HyNet Northwest CO2 Transport and Storage Facility, to enable storage in Liverpool Bay’s depleted gas fields.
The initiative is one of a series of infrastructure projects in the region focused on pioneering green energy solutions. The 321-acre Protos hub is being developed by Peel NRE and uses technologies that provide energy-intensive businesses with low-carbon energy.
It is hoped that construction of the carbon capture site, expected to take two years, would not only boost Net Zero goals by reducing pollution and accelerating decarbonisation, but also bring in around £700 million of investment and support the creation of 250 ‘green skill’ jobs in the area. There would also be an additional seven permanent positions created once the setup is operational.
