FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – 15th March 2023, London
The Carbon Capture and Storage Association (CCSA), the trade body for the Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) industry in Europe, welcomes today’s Spring Budget 2023 confirmation of £20 billion funding for the UK’s CCUS programme.
The Budget confirms that this funding will kick-start early investment in CCUS “unlocking private investment and job creation across the UK, particularly on the East Coast and in the Northwest of England and North Wales, delivering up to 50,000 highly skilled jobs.”
Ruth Herbert, Chief Executive at the CCSA, said:
“We are delighted to see that the Chancellor has today confirmed £20 billion of funding for CCUS. This marks a turning point for this vital sector, delivering the much-needed certainty to investors that the UK is serious about delivering CCUS.
Today’s announcement means that two years since the launch of the programme, we can now move forward with implementing the initial CCUS clusters. Alongside this, the industry is developing a healthy pipeline of projects to deliver on the government’s net zero strategy in industrial regions all around the UK – these other regions are eagerly awaiting their turn to move forward with carbon capture and storage and will need to see the government commit to further deployment.
We look forward to seeing which projects have been chosen to move to construction, the forward timeline for selecting the next CCUS clusters that need to be operational this decade, and a swift passage of the Energy Bill through Parliament, to finalise the regulatory framework for the industry.”
ENDS
Notes to Editors
CCUS, or Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage, is a key low carbon solution – vital to meeting the UK’s statutory Net Zero target at least cost. CCUS enables the production of clean power, clean products (such as steel and cement) and clean hydrogen – which can then be used to decarbonise heating and transport. In addition, CCUS also enables greenhouse gas removal from the atmosphere through Direct Air Capture with Storage (DACS) or Bioenergy with CCS (BECCS).
The CCSA is the lead European association accelerating the commercial deployment of CCUS. We work with members, governments and other organisations to ensure CCUS is developed and deployed at the pace and scale necessary to meet net zero goals and deliver sustainable growth across regions and nations.
The CCSA currently has over 100 member companies who are active in exploring and developing different applications of carbon capture, CO2 transportation by pipeline and ship, utilisation, geological storage, and other permanent storage solutions, as well as members from management, legal and financial consulting sectors.
Further background and guidance on the UK Government’s Cluster Sequencing Programme can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1043088/ccus-cluster-sequencing-phase-2-guidance.pdf
For media enquiries please contact Judith Shapiro on 07719 763133/ judith.shapiro@ccsassociation.org.
To find out more about the Carbon Capture Storage Association (CCSA) please visit the CCSA website at http://www.ccsassociation.org/.