Even before the UK has a competent first-generation carbon-capture demonstrator up and running, the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) has initiated the search for organisations or consortia to bid for a major project which could establish an advanced CO2 capture-technology demonstration project within 10 years.
The proposed project would see the development of “world-leading next-generation capture technology” to a stage where it has completed full-scale demonstration by 2015 and is ready for adoption into full-scale commercial power applications by 2020.
A Request for Proposals giving full details of the project and what the ETI expects from potential consortia members should, by now, be on the ETI’s website at www.energytechnologies.co.uk
ETI says bidders will need to demonstrate and justify how their approach would enable their technology to reach a state of development that would allow future investors to start engineering the design of a power station using this next-generation technology in 2015, with operation commencing in 2020.
The Midlands-based organisation has also rolled out an £11million pioneering plan to support large-scale introduction of plug-in vehicles in the UK. It has mapped out three major research projects to develop pathways to a self-sustaining mass market for electric (EV) and plug-in hybrid electric (PHEV) vehicles. Aberdeen University is to be involved in the work.
These plug-in vehicle contracts will look at:
Consumer reactions and behaviours in buying and using plug-in vehicles and the supporting infrastructure.
Electricity distribution networks and intelligent plug-in vehicle-charging network architecture, as well as the necessary additional infrastructure required for plug-in vehicles.
Economics and carbon benefits of the mass roll-out of plug-in vehicles.
These three projects are due for completion in 2011.
The three contracts will be led by Arup, IBM and Ricardo UK in collaboration with the Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds, E.ON Engineering, EDF Energy, Imperial Consultants, TRL Ltd, Shell, the University of Aberdeen, the University of Sussex and Element Energy.
Staying with the ETI, two “requests for proposals” in bio-energy have just closed (April 1). The first is scheduled to examine “ecosystem land-use modelling” and include a “soil carbon GHG flux field trial”.
The second is a “biomass systems value chain modelling flexible research project”.