National Grid wants carbon capture plans fast-tracked

NATIONAL GRID has backed the Government’s bid to reignite the carbon capture industry with a call to fasttrack funding for new projects to as soon as next year.

Ministers have already pledged £100m to research technology to help strip carbon dioxide out of industrial emissions, but the FTSE 100 energy system operator said funding for specific projects should emerge in 2019.

The Government is not expected to reveal the new investment mechanism until next year.

National Grid made its call for fasttracked carbon capture funding in a new report that found that “action is needed now” to develop the low-carbon gas sources needed to keep to climate change targets.

It has called for pilot projects to be identified in order to begin undertaking full studies by the early 2020s and be operational by the mid-2020s.

“We acknowledge that the future is uncertain and these timelines are an attempt to indicate how the future could play out,” National Grid said.