Representation by National Grid Carbon Limited (National Grid Carbon Limited)
- Date submitted
- 15 September 2022
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
This is a Relevant Representation submitted by National Grid Carbon Limited (NGCL) requesting that NGCL is treated as an Interested Party throughout the Examination process of the Development Consent Order (DCO) application for The North Lincolnshire Green Energy Park Development Consent Order (PINS ref: EN010116). NGCL, as part of National Grid Ventures, is a division of National Grid plc, responsible for both developing and operating businesses in our UK and US territories, and is proposing to develop Humber Low Carbon Pipelines (HLCP); the deployment of a terrestrial pipeline network in the Humber region. HUMBER LOW CARBON PIPELINES (HLCP) PROJECT The HLCP Project intends to establish a pipeline network in the region to transport carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen (H2) to facilitate Carbon Capture Usage and Storage (CCUS). HLCP is in the pre-application stage, with stakeholder engagement underway. This includes dialogue with the Planning Inspectorate over the potential form and content of its associated future Development Consent Order application, which will be inclusive of the terrestrial environment only to Mean Low Water Springs (MLWS) (PINS ref: EN070006). A non–statutory consultation was held in Autumn 2021 on a number of potential network configurations in respect of the proposed CO2 and H2 pipelines. A preferred route corridor was announced by NGCL in Spring 2022. NGCL is currently developing and carrying out further assessments to refine pipeline routeing and above ground installation siting within this route corridor, ahead of a statutory consultation planned for later this year. The CO2 export pipeline below MLWS and the CO2 storage site under the North Sea (known as the Endurance saline aquifer) will be the subject of separate consent applications, under the Petroleum Act 1998 and the Energy Act 2008, being promoted by the licensed operator of the store, bp, on behalf of the Northern Endurance Partnership. NGCL is part of the East Coast Cluster (ECC) bid, combining Humber and Teesside regions, as submitted to the department of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) as part of the Carbon Capture and Storage (CCUS) cluster sequencing consultation. On 19 October 2021, BEIS announced that ECC, along with the HyNet northwest cluster, had been confirmed as Track-1 clusters for deployment in the mid-2020s and would therefore be taken forward to Track-1 negotiations. On 12 August 2022, BEIS announced that a short list of power CCUS, industrial carbon capture, waste and CCUS-enabled hydrogen projects to connect to the Track-1 clusters had been selected to proceed to the due diligence stage of the Cluster Sequencing programme. NGCL’s INTEREST IN THE NORTH LINCOLNSHIRE GREEN ENERGY PARK DCO Whilst the project which is the subject of this application was not amongst those selected to proceed to the next stage of the Cluster Sequencing programme, NGCL notes that the Applicant has stated that it intends for the project to connect to the proposed pipeline network (APP-051). The Applicant’s draft DCO (APP-007) does not include powers to form such a connection at this time. We trust that this relevant representation is of assistance and look forward, where appropriate, to participating in the forthcoming examination process.