Energy-from-waste operator enfinium has announced (on 11 April) it is progressing plans to invest around £200 million in carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology at the Parc Adfer energy from waste facility in Deeside, North Wales.
The project could capture up to 235,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) every year, said the group. As over half of the waste processed at the facility is organic, installing CCS would enable the plant to take more CO2 out of the atmosphere than it produces. The Welsh Government’s Carbon Budget makes clear that Wales needs carbon removal solutions to mitigate other polluting parts of the economy to achieve a Net Zero economy.1
Opened in 2019 in partnership with the five local authorities that make up the North Wales Residual Waste Treatment Partnership (NWRWTP), Parc Adfer currently diverts up to 232,000 tonnes of unrecyclable waste from climate damaging landfill. As recognised by the National Infrastructure Commission, emissions from energy from waste plants are lower per tonne of waste compared to landfill.2
With CCS installed, Parc Adfer will support the Welsh Government’s ambition to have 100% zero carbon power by 2035 and support over 1,000 jobs in the green economy during the construction phase.
The proposal has been put forward for grant support from the UK Government as part of the expansion of their ‘Track-1’ carbon capture programme. The captured carbon will be transported using the pipeline network currently being developed in the region for the HyNet carbon capture cluster, one of the first two priority carbon capture clusters selected for development in the UK.
Mike Maudsley, CEO of enfinium, said: “To deliver a net zero carbon economy, Wales needs to find a way to produce carbon removals, or negative emissions, at scale. Installing carbon capture at the Parc Adfer facility would transform it into the largest generator of carbon negative power in Wales, decarbonise unrecyclable waste and support the green economy in Deeside and wider North Wales region.”
Ben Burggraaf, CEO of Net Zero Industry Wales, commented: “North-East Wales has an exciting opportunity to leverage technologies like carbon capture and hydrogen to produce the sustainable goods and services of the future. It is critical that projects like those at Parc Adfer move forward as quickly as possible to maintain our competitive advantage over other countries.”
Planning and consenting for the Parc Adfer CCS project will commence later this year. The UK Government is expected to provide an update on which projects are progressing through the Track-1 HyNet Expansion programme by the summer.
Notes
1 Welsh Government, “Net Zero Wales Carbon Budget 2 (2021-2025)”, 2021, available here. The report states (p.53): “the scale of the problem we are facing means that reducing emissions is not enough. We must also remove greenhouse gases that are already in the atmosphere.”
2 National Infrastructure Commission, “The Second National Infrastructure Assessment”, 2023, p. 129.
