The application for a development consent order for Keadby Three Low Carbon Gas Power Station has been accepted by the Planning Inspectorate.
SSE Thermal and Equinor have brought forward what would be one of the UK’s first power stations equipped with carbon capture technology.
Now entered into the thorough examination process, the energy giants propose a 900MW power station that will be ready to plug into the Zero Carbon Humber plan to decarbonise the Energy Estuary.
Chris White, operations lead for national infrastructure and energy at the Bristol-based body has written to the duo’s property and planning consultancy, DWD, to inform them of the initial passage.
The North Lincolnshire addition to an existing power cluster would replace older, carbon-intensive generation on the electricity grid - potentially by 2027.
It could capture around 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 annually and would represent an investment of several hundred million pounds.
Keadby Two, one of the most efficient gas-fired power stations, is currently in construction at the site, west of Scunthorpe and the River Trent, with the original Fifties coal plant replaced by gas in 1996.
Early stage proposals for Keadby Four - to be fuelled by hydrogen - were revealed in April , with SSE and Equinor again in partnership.
Both are part of the Zero Carbon Humber partnership, which proposes a dual pipeline corridor through the UK’s most polluting cluster, with hydrogen production and captured carbon sequestered below the North Sea.
It comes as down-river a Planning Inspectorate decision is awaited on South Humber Bank Energy Centre - a 95MW energy from waste plant alongside EPI UKI’s South Humber Bank power station at Stallingborough.
The £300 million investment is being brought forward by EP Waste Management Ltd, a subsidiary of the firm that bought out the Centrica site in 2017, with the potential to create 55 permanent jobs.
The examination closed last month, with a deadline of mid-August for a recommendation to the Secretary of State. A smaller scale proposal, now being superseded, had been approved.
