Encyclis carbon capture plant granted approval

Cheshire West and Chester council’s planning committee are said to have unanimously resolved to grant approval, subject to the completion of a Section 106 legal agreement.

In a report to the committee, planning officers said: “The reduction of carbon emissions and energy generation is supported at national level, within legislation, guidance and policy. The proposed development would be one of the first such developments in the UK. As such, the proposal would positively contribute to meeting climate change initiatives and support economic growth.”

The project has already been selected by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) as part of its Track-1 cluster sequencing programme for industrial carbon capture.

The carbon capture plant is set to prevent around 380,000 tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere, enabling sustainable treatment of unrecyclable residual household and commercial waste at Protos Energy Recovery Facility (ERF), which is currently being constructed near Ellesmere Port by joint owners Encyclis and Biffa.

Potential

When it begins operations, Protos ERF will process up to 500,000 tonnes per year of residual waste, generating enough baseload electricity to power around 75,000 homes and recovering reusable resources in support of the circular economy.

The proposed carbon capture plant, on adjoining land, will capture CO2 from the facility which, as part of the region’s HyNet decarbonisation cluster, will be transported by pipeline for offshore storage in the depleted gas fields of Liverpool Bay.

The aim is to demonstrate the potential of carbon capture at commercial scale and provide a technical and commercial blueprint for similar facilities around the country.

The construction of the plant will support around 250 jobs in the North West region, and an additional seven full-time skilled jobs will be created when it begins operations.

Owen Michaelson, CEO at Encyclis, said: “Our goal is to prove that we can continue to deliver a vital public sanitation service while cutting the CO2 emissions that contribute to climate change. We thank the local authority for its careful and efficient consideration of our application and recognising the strategic importance of this project.”