On the 4th February, the Carbon Capture and Storage Association (CCSA) and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) published their joint report “The Economic Benefits of CCS in the UK”. The report set out new modelling showing the benefits of Carbon Capture Storage (CCS) to the UK economy including significant job creation and Gross Value Added (GVA).
The modelling is based on four scenarios from the Energy Technologies Institute’s (ETI) Energy Systems Modelling Environment (ESME) tool. The ESME tool concludes that without CCS, the cost of delivering a UK low-carbon energy mix in 2050 would increase by £30-£40 billion per year (1% of GDP!).
Using these four scenarios, the CCSA/TUC report concludes that inclusion of CCS in the mix of low-carbon technologies results in a 15 per cent reduction in the wholesale price of electricity by 2030, compared with scenarios where CCS is not deployed. This reduction has a direct impact on the average household, with bills estimated to be £82 lower per year by 2030 in the scenarios with full CCS deployment.
The potential job creation from CCS is significant – estimates from existing data indicate between 1000-2,500 jobs created during construction in each new power plant CCS installation, with a further 200-300 jobs created in operation and maintenance and the associated supply chain (40-100 jobs at the plant itself). Evidence that these estimates are broadly accurate can be seen from the first actual power plant CCS installation at Boundary Dam in Canada, which is due to start operation early this year. This project employed more than 1,500 people during construction and maintains 41 operational employees at the plant itself.
The report also gives an estimate of total job creation from CCS by 2030. This requires an estimate of projected CCS capacity and the report uses a range of 10-20 GW – numbers that have been quoted in both Government and industry reports. This range translates into approximately 15-25 CCS installations by 2030, totalling annual number of jobs created from CCS in the range of 15,000-30,000.
In addition to job creation, the GVA benefits from CCS to the UK economy are significant. Using a realistic aspiration of 75% UK supply chain content in UK CCS projects (UK content), the report estimates that the GVA benefits from CCS deployment in the UK are in the region of £2-4 billion per year by 2030, with a cumulative market value of £15-35 billion. Importantly, the report states that the benefits from CCS could be felt much earlier – indeed there are five to seven ‘shovel ready’ power and industry CCS projects that could deliver benefits in the next parliamentary term (2015-2020). Each power sector project could deliver between £150–200 million GVA per year during its lifetime.
The report concludes that “The UK has reached a defining moment with regards to the future of a successful CCS industry”, and that action taken over the next 7-10 years will determine whether the UK can reap the significant benefits of CCS. It therefore proposes that five key actions should be prioritised by the UK Government, including immediate roll-out of the two projects in the current CCS competition as well as final investment decisions on non-competition projects, implementation of Electricity Market Reform appropriately designed for CCS, development of transport and storage infrastructure and support for industrial CCS.
The CCSA/TUC report “The Economic Benefits of CCS in the UK” can be downloaded from http://www.ccsassociation.org/index.php/download_file/view/748/76/.
For further information please feel free to contact:
Judith Shapiro, Policy and Communications Manager, CCSA
020 3031 8750; judith.shapiro@ccsassociation.org