London—Dentons advised the Department of Energy and Climate Change on its funding of a FEED Contract which Energy and Climate Change Secretary Edward Davey announced today is to be awarded to the White Rose CCS project, based at the site of the Drax power station.

The multi-million pound FEED study funding will support the White Rose project, which is designing a c.£2 billion state-of-the-art coal power plant with full CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) that will be able to provide clean electricity to more than 630,000 homes. It also includes the planned development of a CO₂ transport and storage network – the Yorkshire Humber CCS Trunkline – which would have capacity for additional CCS projects in the area. CCS allows the safe removal and permanent storage of carbon dioxide emissions from coal and gas power stations, as well as from industrial processes.

White Rose is the first project to be allocated funds under the Government’s £1 billion CCS Commercialisation Programme, on which Dentons is advising.

Christopher McGee-Osborne, Partner and head of energy, transport and infrastructure in the UKMEA region, said: "This innovative project is a key move towards the UK achieving its climate change targets and we are delighted to be involved in helping to reach an important milestone in the Government's energy policy"

The Dentons team is led by Christopher McGee-Osborne and includes partners Catherine Bingham and Lucille de Silva, supported by associates Martin Watt, Zara Skelton, Mark Bassett, Peter Shaw and James Lansdell.

Notes to Editors

• The FEED study is a programme of detailed engineering, planning and financial work to finalise and de-risk all aspects of the proposal ahead of taking final investment decisions, and proceeding to construction.
• The White Rose proposal is to build a new state-of-the-art 426MW (gross) clean coal power plant with full carbon capture and storage. It will be the largest oxy combustion plant in the world and will also have the potential to co-fire biomass. It will capture approximately 2 million tonnes of CO₂ per year, some 90% of all CO₂ emissions produced by the plant. The CO₂ will be transported through National Grid’s proposed Yorkshire / Humber CCS Trunkline for permanent undersea storage in the North Sea.
• Alstom, Drax and BOC are the project co-developers. The three partners have formed a company called Capture Power limited that would be responsible for the development, implementation and operation of the proposed new plant. As part of this cooperation. Alstom would have responsibility for construction of the power plant together with the CO₂ processing unit and BOC would have responsibility for the construction of the air separation unit that supplies oxygen for combustion. Drax would have responsibility for the operation and maintenance (O&M) of the power plant and the CO₂ processing facility with BOC having responsibility for the O&M of the air separation unit.
• National Grid would construct and operate a large capacity CO₂ transport pipeline and permanent CO₂ undersea storage facilities at a North Sea site. This work would take forward a proposal which has benefitted from the European Commission’s European Energy Reform Programme (EEPR) fund.

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