A waste wood power plant operated by the energy company Evero in Ellesmere Port south of Liverpool has been selected by the British government as one of two projects to advance carbon capture and storage (CCS). This means that Evero can now begin negotiations on retrofitting its Evero Ince biomass power plant to turn it into the country's first bioenergy facility with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), the company announced this week.
The project is part of the HyNet cluster and involves retrofitting the existing bioenergy capacities with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' CO2 capture technology. According to Evero, this will provide a scalable and cost-effective solution that can be implemented quickly. Around 270,000 tonnes of CO2 from the combustion of around 170,000 tonnes of waste wood are to be captured and stored per year. The company will aim to complete the retrofit by 2029.
Evero says it will be able to "leverage the region’s HyNet Cluster carbon capture transport and storage network, optimising the UK’s investment in this infrastructure". The project also strengthens the UK's leadership in green innovation by creating high-quality, skilled jobs in carbon capture and clean energy technology.
The CO2 captured by the cluster members will be transported via pipeline to Liverpool Bay, where it will be permanently stored under the seabed.
"This project marks the next step in Evero’s strategy to deliver BECCS-based greenhouse gas removals from multiple waste wood sites across the UK", said Elliot Renton, CEO of Evero. "It’s a foundational move to scale BECCS and help realise the UK's net zero ambitions."
The company describes Ince Bio Power as "one of the largest waste wood biomass facilities of its kind in the UK" with a capacity of 21.5 MW. In addition, Evero's plant fleet includes the Mersey Bio Energy facility with a capacity of 20.9 MW. The plant located in the Liverpool region combusts about 102,500 tonnes of waste wood per year. Evero's third biomass power plant, Lisahally Power Station in Northern Ireland, has the same throughput and a capacity of 16.4 MW.
