UK gets a total of £266m in EU grants for wind and CCS development
Elaine Brass
10th December 2009
The European Commission has announced it is to give the UK a total of €294 million (£267 million) in grant money to help with the development of renewable and carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects.
The money is coming via the European Energy Programme for Recovery (EEPR) fund, which has earmarked total grants €1 billion (£0.9 billion) to six CCS projects and €510 million (£461 million) to nine offshore wind energy projects in Europe.
As already reported by GreenWise in October, £164 million of the funding is to go to Powerfuel Ltd ito develop a new 900 megawatt (MW) CCS power plant at Hatfield, Yorkshire.
Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission, a division of Scottish and Southern Energy, will receive £67 million to build an intermediary platform on its planned high-voltage direct current link between Shetland and Scottish mainland to connect offshore wind and marine generation.
Meanwhile, Aberdeen Offshore Wind Farm Ltd, will receive £36 million to develop a wind deployment facility for the testing of multi MW turbines and to optimise the manufacturing capacities of offshore wind energy production equipment.
Commenting on the funding, Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said: "The financing that has been made available will act as a role to secure and speed up investments in the energy sector. In addition, the funds allocated to projects will have a direct impact on the EU economy and on employment [and] will assist in speeding up the implementation of the 20/20/20 objectives for 2020 by promoting for the first time on a large scale the development of carbon capture storage technologies and the implementation of high power wind turbines."
The EEPR has a total €3.98 billion available through 2009 and 2010 to secure and speed up investments in the energy sector.
The EEPR was launched in July this year when promoters were asked to submit proposals for key energy infrastructure projects.