Powerfuel

Powerfuel, a company owned by mining entrepreneur Richard Budge and the Russian coal group KRU -- owned the Hatfield colliery and the proposed Hatfield Power Station. However, in December 2010 the company called KPMG in to sell both the projects as the company had insufficient funds to develop either the mine or the power station.

Coal power station proposal
Powerfuel proposed the Hatfield Power Station, a 900 megawatt proposed coal gasification project with a notional commissioning date of 2013. Powerfuel had planned to construct the world's first large-scale integrated gasification combined cycle power station with carbon capture capability in two phases with the plant operating on syngas in 2013 in the first phase. By 2015 the power station would have the gasification and carbon capture units installed and then move to full commercial operation in the second quarter of 2016. The plant would be using gasification technology licensed from Royal Dutch Shell.

In December 2010 KPMG found that Powerfuel had a shortfall of capital of £635million to move the proposed power station beyond the preliminary phase. "The substantial funding gap has not been addressed in the past 12 months and accordingly the project has stalled. The administration will enable a sales process to find a new owner, who can both take the CCS project forward and buttress the mine, which also requires around £30m of capital expenditure," KPMG stated.

Following a corporate restructuring, the project has been renamed the Don Valley Power Project. In May 2011 it was announced that the company had submitted a bid for funding from the European Union's 'New Entrant's Reserve' for demonstration CCS projects. (The scheme is commonly referred to as the NER300 fund). Powerfuel have also announced a proposed 450 MW gas-fired power station with CCS. The Don Valley Project, the company states on its website, has been "awarded €180 million of EU funding in 2010 and planning permission was awarded in 2009. National Grid is currently permitting a pipeline to take the CO2 offshore to North Sea storage sites.  The project currently expects to be operational by the end of 2016" with an estimated total cost of "up to £5 billion".

Related SourceWatch articles

 * United Kingdom and coal

External articles

 * Rowena Mason, "Powerfuel is founder Richard Budge's sixth business to hit financial difficulties", Telegraph (UK), December 11, 2010.