Coal-fired power generation seems on the verge of rebirth in the U.K. following news of plans for a third high-efficiency unit, incorporating carbon capture. At least 3,850 MW of new clean coal capacity is now under serious review by the country's biggest generating companies.

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In the latest move, Centrica plc, London, has invested in a project for a $1.9-billion, 800-MW plant in Teesside, northeast England. The plant, being developed by Coastal Energy Ltd., will integrate coal gasification with combined-cycle generation (IGCC) and carbon-dioxide extraction for injection into North Sea oil wells.

Centrica, which owns British Gas plc and other energy companies, last month acquired, for $14.3 million, an option for 85% of Coastal Energy from Progressive Energy Ltd., Stroud. Centrica plans to buy the rest after permitting is done, in two years, when procurement would begin. The deal "could lead to the development of the U.K.'s first complete clean coal plant," says Centrica Chief Executive Sam Laidlaw.

Using tested technologies, "we've got a pretty detailed design approach… there's nothing theoretical about this," says Progressive Managing Director Peter Whitton. He also identified potential coastal sites and users of the CO2 among North Sea oil operators. About five million tonnes of CO2 per year—up to 85% of total production—will likely be pumped some 300 kilometers offshore and injected into the seabed, Whitton says. Progressive has agreed to sell 55% of its CO2 pipeline company, Coots Ltd., to Centrica.

Progressive's first IGCC project, in South Wales, foundered four years ago when plans to inject CO2 into an offshore saline aquifer threatened to violate a treaty banning dumping in the North Atlantic. Injection into North Sea oil wells to aid production will breach no treaties, says Whitton.

In the IGCC system chosen for Teesside, coal is reacted with oxygen and steam to produce "syngas" fuel comprising mainly hydrogen and CO2, which is extracted. Energy conversion efficiencies can be around 10% higher than for conventional pulverized-coal plants, according to various studies. Because CO2 is extracted before combustion, cost is substantially less than for conventional plants. An analysis by Standard & Poor's puts the total cost of carbon capture in an IGCC unit at about $26 per MW-hour and $56 for a pulverized coal plant.

Whitton

For the U.K.'s other two planned coal projects with carbon capture, developers have opted for supercritical coal-burning plants. They operate as pulverized coal plants, but at higher-than-normal temperature for greater efficiency.

RWE npower plc is running a feasibility study on a 1,000-MW supercritical plant with carbon capture at its station in Tilbury, Essex, aiming for operation in 2016. The study will define carbon capture and disposals options. It is due for completion around the end of this year.

E.ON U.K. is planning two 800-MW supercritical units at its Kingsnorth coal power station in Kent, aiming to start operations by late 2015. The plant would cut carbon emissions almost two million tonnes per year compared to units at the site, claims E.ON. The new units will operate at 45% efficiency, compared to 36% for existing units. E.ON says it will design the plant to allow retrofitting for carbon capture. It also hopes to build a 450-MW IGCC coal unit at its existing Killingholme station, Lincolnshire.

Europe has three IGCC plants, all commissioned in the last decade. The first was the 253-MW Willem-Alexander plant in Buggenum, Netherlands. It was followed two years later by a 400-MW brown-coal unit at Vresova, in the Czech Republic. Two years after that, Spain's 335-MW Elcogas plant began processing coal.

Among future IGCC projects, owner of the Willem-Alexander plant, n.v. Nuon, Amsterdam, plans a decision by summer on a 1,200-MW plant at Eemshaven, with operation to start in 2011. In Germany, RWE A.G. aims to commission a $1.2-billion, 400 to 450-MW plant with carbon capture in 2014.