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12 April 2006 - RWE npower today unveiled plans for the UK's first clean coal power station on the banks of the River Thames.
The UK arm of the German power group is carrying out a feasibility study, that could take up to two years, into building the plant at its site at Tilbury on the Thames estuary, according to a report in the Financial Times.
The existing RWE plant at the site, Tilbury B, is a conventional coal fired plant dating back to the 1968 with a capacity of 1428 MW. The plant is in need of modernization and the feasibility study would assess whether to refit Tilbury with new technology or build a new plant.
The proposals are to use highly efficient clean coal technology and may combine that with technology to capture the carbon dioxide emissions and store them underground. The cost of such a plant has been estimated at around £700m ($1.2bn).
Parent company RWE last month announced plans to build the first large-scale power plant worldwide with integrated coal gasification, CO2 separation and CO2 storage in Germany. The 450 MW plant is due for completion by 2014 and will cost around €1bn ($1.2bn).
Andy Duff, RWE npower chief executive said," It's not cheap, this kind of technology, and the risk we are taking is significant."
Duff said that the key to the project moving forward was regulatory certainty over environment standards such as clarity over the likely level of cut in emissions of carbon dioxide from electricity generators. He said that the European Emissions Trading scheme had been an important factor in the decision to build the new plant.
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