ENERGY giant SSE may keep Scotland’s dirtiest power station open until 2040 – 10 years longer than planned – which critics fear could “blow an enormous hole” in the Scottish Government’s climate strategy.
The company owns the Peterhead gas-fired power station in the North East which has been producing electricity since 1982.
It is the largest remaining fossil fuel power station in Scotland and one of the biggest polluters in the country, releasing more than one million tonnes of climate-warming carbon dioxide (CO2) in an average year – about the same as 250,000 cars.
SSE, along with Norwegian company Equinor, is planning to build a new replacement gas power station next to the current one. They claim this new plant will help Scotland meet climate targets because it will use technology to capture most of its emissions and store them under the North Sea.
However, new plans show that the old Peterhead plant could stay operational until 2040 – and could run at the same time as the new one. That is despite SSE previously saying it “could not foresee” the old plant staying open past 2030.
Meanwhile, a document published on climate change by the Scottish Government last month suggests ministers were unaware of the changed timeline – which one campaigner claimed was “stunning” given “all their cosy meetings with SSE”.
Campaigners and local politicians argued extending the life of the “mega-polluter” old plant could see Scotland “bust through” its climate targets.
But SSE said it is needed to play an “important back-up role” ensuring Scotland can keep the lights on when energy from other sources like wind turbines is not available.
Extended lifespan
THE finding about the old plant’s extended life comes from a new assessment of the environmental impact of the new plant published by SSE in May.
The document says that if the new plant (Peterhead 2) is approved by Scottish ministers, the old one (Peterhead 1) is “expected” to stay in operation with its “existing total capacity available up to 2040”.
In a response to The Ferret, SSE said it expects the current station to run until the mid-2030s, and that the 2040 date is a worst case scenario.
Unlike the current station, the new one would use carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to reduce emissions. SSE says building the new plant is essential to Scotland meeting its climate targets because it will provide a reliable source of “dispatchable” low-carbon power at times when renewable sources cannot meet demand, such as when the wind is not blowing.
But Peterhead 2 will still be linked to considerable emissions. The new environmental assessment looked at “well-to-tank” emissions – including the climate pollution created when drilling for the gas that will be burned at the new site. These emissions will not be captured by CCS.
Taking these into account, the new plant could cause the equivalent of 17 million tonnes of CO2 to enter the atmosphere over its 25-year life – three times more than SSE originally estimated in 2022.
Climate activists believe this could still be an understatement because they are skeptical about the amount of CO2 that will be captured by Peterhead 2.
‘Unreliable technology’?
SSE has “conservatively” assumed that 90% of the emissions from the new site will be captured and stored. Campaigners argue this level of capture has never been achieved in practice.
The think tank Carbon Tracker published an analysis on Peterhead 2 last year which argued most carbon capture plants operating today “struggle to achieve high capture rates above 80%, let alone 90-95%”.
“Carbon capture has repeatedly failed to deliver so trying to make future calculations based on such an unreliable technology is foolish at best and downright reckless at worst,” Friends of the Earth Scotland’s senior climate campaigner Alex Lee told The Ferret.
They warned that continuing to allow gas burning at Peterhead could “blow an enormous hole in Scotland’s limited carbon budget”.
Last month, the Scottish Government announced a new approach to measuring progress towards its target for Scotland to reach net zero emissions by 2045. This would bring in new “carbon budgets” – limits on how much carbon Scotland can emit every five years – to replace annual targets that were dropped last year after being repeatedly missed.
A document accompanying these new budgets included the assumption that Peterhead 1 would be replaced by the new plant “just after 2030”. Lee said it was “stunning” that the Scottish Government did not appear to know that the life of the plant is likely to be extended “despite all their cosy meetings with SSE”.
In the five years between 2019 and 2023 – the most recent for which there is data – Peterhead 1 produced nearly six million tonnes of climate-warming CO2.
SSE expects the old plant to run at reduced levels once the new station comes online and is predicting a “reduction in overall emissions” from Peterhead.
But “worse case scenario” projections by SSE suggest in total the site could be responsible for the equivalent of 1.6 million tonnes of CO2 entering the atmosphere each year of the 2030s. SSE stressed that this was “unlikely”.
Politicians expressed concern that keeping the old plant running could see the Peterhead site consume a growing share of Scotland’s carbon budgets. This would leave less room for emissions from sectors which are seen as hard to decarbonise, such as farming.
Maggie Chapman, the Scottish Greens MSP, said keeping “mega-polluter” Peterhead running until 2040 would see Scotland “bust through its climate targets”.
She added that instead of expanding one of Scotland’s most polluting sites, “we need to see government-led projects to build a better future” for workers and communities which have relied on the fossil fuel industry.
Chapman’s fellow north east MSP, Scottish Labour’s Mercedes Villalba, said the Scottish Government appeared to be “clueless” about the overlap in running Peterhead 1 and 2 because of its “inadequate and ineffective oversight”.
“Proposals for a new plant rely on CCS which remains years from realisation in Scotland,” Villalba said. “Meanwhile, with no plan for transition, it is no surprise that the dirtier alternative is set to continue.
“Our energy transition will continue to be disorderly, with workers paying the price with our jobs, health, environment and climate, until the government gets a grip.”
An SSE spokesperson pointed out that the UK Government had “outlined the need for up to 35GW of gas generation to remain on the system by 2030”. “This type of capacity will continue to play an important backup role into the 2030s,” they said.
“As a result, our existing assets, including Peterhead 1, will remain operational for longer than previously expected, helping us to keep the lights on when required.
“Peterhead carbon capture (Peterhead 2) will ultimately replace the existing station, delivering low-carbon power and supporting the transition to a clean energy system.”
The Scottish Government said policies to meet the carbon budgets would be set in its draft climate change plan which is due “later this year”. A spokesperson said ministers were opposed to continued use of fossil fuels to generate electricity if they are not “abated” by CCS technology.
“However, as the UK Climate Change Committee and National Infrastructure Commission have emphasised, there will continue to be a role for small amounts of abated natural gas, due to renewables’ intermittent nature and the flexibility which gas is able to provide during periods of low renewable generation,” the spokesperson said.
“The application for Peterhead low carbon power station is live – as such it would not be appropriate to comment on it or prejudice any considerations or final outcome.”
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