Whitetail Clean Energy

Carbon capture projects will be essential to decarbonising industry on the UK’s transition to a Net Zero future.

One of the first projects of its kind in the world, Whitetail Clean Energy is poised to become the UK’s first 300MW Net Zero Power station based on Teesside.

The plant will generate approximately 300MW of clean power, available whenever it is needed, while capturing and storing its carbon emissions in secure geological formations deep under the North Sea.

What’s more, it will operate at competitive cost and efficiency to traditional gas power plants.

The process combusts natural gas with oxygen, rather than air, and uses supercritical carbon dioxide (CO2) as a working fluid to drive a turbine instead of steam.

This means that near all air emissions, including traditional pollutants and CO2, are eliminated and pipeline-quality CO2 is produced so that it can be captured and stored offshore, making Whitetail a Net Zero emissions plant.

Whitetail’s proposed location within Sembcorp Energy UK’s Wilton International site sits within a hub of decarbonisation innovation. The Teesside site offers convenient port and pipeline access, meaning that all Whitetail’s captured carbon dioxide can be conveniently transported.

The technology will capture more than 800,000 tons of CO2 per year, while emitting no air pollutants. The project will further support the decarbonisation efforts of the region, and the UK, to help reach the Net Zero 2050 target.

Whitetail is also expected to bring significant investment into Teesside, potentially creating more than 2,000 direct, indirect, and induced jobs during peak construction and 200 direct and indirect highly skilled jobs during operation.

The project is a collaboration between 8 Rivers Capital and Sembcorp Energy UK, alongside NET Power which brings world-leading development expertise to the project, and aims to reach Final Investment Decision in 2022 and could begin operations by 2025.