LEPs unite to back energy hub bid

YORKSHIRE’S four local enterprise partnerships have joined forces to back projects that could make the region a centre for green energy production.

They are urging the Government to help fund 2Co Energy’s Don Valley Power Project and the White Rose Carbon Capture Project as a first step to creating a ‘cluster’ of expertise in carbon capture and storage technology that will benefit the whole of Yorkshire.

The demise of regional development agency Yorkshire Forward and the creation of local enterprise partnerships raised concerns that the new bodies would become preoccupied with local concerns and not act together.

That idea has always been rejected by the LEP chairmen and their united support for the region’s pioneering CCS projects is the most high profile example of collaboration between the four bodies to date.

In April, the Government launched a competition that will see CCS projects sharing £1bn in funding and the Don Valley power Project and the White Rose CCS Project are both seeking a share.

White Rose CCS is a joint venture from Drax, Alstom and BOC that would see the creation of new plant on the Drax site burning coal and biomass while the Don Valley Power Project is 2Co Energy’s plan to build a new coal-fired power station at Stainforth. In both cases, harmful gases would be captured and piped under the North Sea for storage.

A letter rallying support among MPs, senior councillors and other influential figures, signed by the four LEP chairmen, says Yorkshire is “at the forefront of this technology” and describes the projects as “a very significant and transformational opportunity, not just for our region but as a first for the UK and Europe.”

“We have the best opportunity in Europe, if not the world, to build a scaleable business and take a worldwide leadership position,” it says.

In a separate letter to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the four LEP chairmen describe the Don Valley Power Project as the potential anchor for a “regional wide CCS network that could decarbonise energy intensive industries for decades to come at a scale that cannot be matched anywhere else in the UK and be a world leading example of a CCS cluster”.