This chapter presents the Environment and Consents Reports produced during the current FEED stage.
One of the key objectives of the FEED study was to develop information across the project chain, from CO2 generation to storage in sufficient detail to enable production of applications for environmental consents.
A Consents Philosophy was generated upon commencement of the FEED to develop a programme of work to achieve this objective, and identified the following groups of consents:
- Power and capture plant: 1989 Electricity Act – Section 36;
- Onshore pipeline: 1990 Town and Country Planning Act;
- Offshore Pipeline;
- Offshore Platform;
- Storage Consents.
Some keys aspects of the FEED Consents study are:
- There were significant uncertainties at the outset of the project regarding the types of consent required. This was a consequence of the planning consent for Kingsnorth Units 5 and 6 having already been submitted in 2006, new government policy and draft regulatory guidance, and ongoing government consultations on regulatory issues;
- Many of these issues were resolved, enabling development of consent applications for the integrated power and capture plant and onshore and offshore CO2 pipeline. However in some cases, particularly for the offshore platform and storage, uncertainty remained throughout the project. In these instances the deliverable was an interpretation of the regulatory requirements that will need to be reviewed and taken into account to obtain consents during subsequent stages of the project.
Further supporting documents for chapter 9 of the Key Knowledge Reference Book can be downloaded below.