Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) has secured an engineering and design contract for a gas power and CO2 capture plant planned at Peterhead.
MHI, together with its group engineering division MHIENG, will provide front end engineering and design (FEED) for gas turbine combined cycle (GTCC) units and carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology used in the pioneering north-east project.
Developers SSE Thermal and Equinor submitted a planning application for the proposed 910 megawatt (MW) 910MW Peterhead Carbon Capture Power Station in March.
The unit would repurpose the site of an existing 1,180MW gas-fired plant which first became operational in 1982.
The new scheme is expected to capture up to 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year, which would be transported and sequestered underground in the North Sea. the amount represents about 5% of the UK Government’s 2030 target for CCS.
It would hook up to the Scottish Cluster’s CO2 transport and storage infrastructure, including the nearby Acorn project.
The project could be the first of its kind in Scotland and is seeking government support through the second stage of the administration’s CCS funding process, dubbed Track 2.
In delivering its FEED scope, MHI is also partnering with Worley and Técnicas Reunidas.
The consortium will deliver what MHI said would be its “most advanced” M701JAC (J-series air-cooled) gas turbine, and MHIENG’s “Kansai Mitsubishi Carbon Dioxide Recovery Process” (the KM CDR process) developed in partnership with Japan’s Kansai Electric Power Company.
As of August 2022, the company has delivered 14 plants using this carbon capture technology. The next generation version of used at Peterhead would include “technological improvements” over the first-generation solvent used at these existing sites, MHI said.
To help support UK projects, the Japanese conglomerate said it had also established a “Decarbonization Business Department”, based in London at the group’s regional headquarters for operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
SSE has previously said the facility would support about 1,000 jobs during the construction phase, while dozens more workers would be needed on a long-term basis to operate the plant.
However, environmental campaigners have called on Holyrood to veto the plans, with Friends of the Earth Scotland claiming the plant would “lock in” continued use of fossil fuels.
