The NSTA issued three carbon storage permits to Eni for Liverpool Bay CCS, the CO2 transportation and storage system which will serve the HyNet industrial cluster in April and another to the Northern Endurance Partnership in December last year, after the government pledged up to £21.7 billion of funding available, over 25 years, to make the UK a global leader in carbon capture and storage, an industry estimated to support 50,000 skilled jobs in the long-term.
Stuart Payne, NSTA Chief Executive, said,“Carbon storage is a crucial part of the energy transition and an essential element of the path to net zero. We’ve been talking about carbon storage for many years, but now we have reached the milestone of having permitted two projects which will turbocharge the UK’s drive to unlock investment, jobs and economic growth and reach net zero emissions by 2050."
“We are pleased by the ongoing enthusiasm from industry, and aware that pace is needed as we help to effect the transition, and that is why we are calling for nominations now.”
The process of seeking pre-application nominations should encourage companies to focus on areas where they have already done some technical work, encouraging higher quality applications and likely cutting time to project delivery, the NSTA said.
Companies submitting nominations will be required to submit spatial data and describe a high-level project description, which will allow the NSTA, Crown Estate Scotland (CES) and The Crown Estate (TCE) to consider any spatial planning interactions and opportunities.
Once the nominations window closes on 31 July, the NSTA will evaluate the proposals, working closely with CES, TCE and the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero to align carbon storage licensing and seabed leasing, and ensure minimal impact on other offshore sectors and users such as current or planned windfarms and tidal schemes.
The NSTA previously offered 21 licences in the world’s first large-scale carbon storage licensing round, which concluded in September 2023.
The UK Continental Shelf has the potential capacity to store up to 78 gigatonnes of CO2 in depleted reservoirs and saline aquifers, so it is expected that industry will be able to nominate good quality sites for a prospective licensing round. The government’s climate adviser, The Climate Change Committee, has insisted there is no credible path to net zero without carbon storage.