A UK carbon-capture project part- owned by Samsung Group and developed by a British company held by TPG Capital is first in line for a share of as much as 1.5 billion-euros ($1.8 billion) in European Union funding.
The Don Valley Power Project in northern England proposed by 2Co Energy leads a list of ventures selected as candidates in a European Commission funding program, the commission said today in a report on its website. Four of the eight projects on the list are based in the UK.
Britain’s coalition government is ahead of other European countries having separately offered 1 billion pounds ($1.5 billion) of funding for the technology, which gathers emissions for underground storage. Without CCS, the UK may fail to meet climate goals, Energy Minister Charles Hendry said in February.
The Teesside CCS Project developed by a group including Progressive Energy in north England and the White Rose proposal by Alstom SA, Drax Group Plc and National Grid Plc in Yorkshire are also candidates for funding awards.
The Belchatow project in Poland proposed by utility Polska Grupa Energetyczna SA was second on the list. Third was the Netherlands-based Green Hydrogen project developed by Air Liquide SA. One CCS project was withdrawn from the program, called the NER300, after completion of due diligence.
2Co Energy
The first two to three CCS projects on the list may be funded “within the estimated 1.3 billion euros to 1.5 billion euros of available funds,” according to the report. The commission aims make award decisions by the end of 2012.
A Scottish project by SSE Plc and Royal Dutch Shell Plc is on a “reserve list” should a candidate drop out.
2Co Energy’s top ranking means it may receive as much as 377 million euros in European funding, including 180 million euros from the European Energy Program for Recovery, according to Kieron Stopforth, a CCS analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
“2Co Energy still has a long way to go,” he said by e- mail, requiring as much as 700 million pounds in additional financing to meet its target of 1 billion pounds in public grants.
2Co Energy, backed by Fort Worth, Texas-based private equity company TPG Capital, agreed to sell shares in the project to Linde AG and Samsung’s construction and trading arm Samsung C&T this year.
