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Energy companies will lobby the government for a get-out clause from the deadline to fully fit carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to new coal plants by 2025 because they are worried it might not work in time.
Companies, including German-owned groups E.ON and RWE npower, want guarantees that they will not be forced to close their coal-fired plants in 2025 if the technology has not been proven by then.
They will call on energy and climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, to draw up provisions which would allow them to keep the plants open until 2030, or for an additional number of operating hours. The utilities are warning that without firm guarantees, they will not invest in a new generation of cleaner coal plants which are crucial to keeping the lights on in Britain over the next decade.
Environmental groups warned Miliband against watering down his radical policy on coal power, which proposed far tougher measures to curb carbon emissions than many expected.
John Sauven, the executive director of Greenpeace, said: “CCS technology is still fraught with uncertainties. If Miliband doesn’t show the necessary leadership to completely rule out unabated coal, then all the evidence suggests that’s what we’ll get.
“Ed Miliband must stand firm against the big power companies lobbying for loopholes and get-out clauses.”
Last month, Miliband announced that any new coal plant would have to have CCS technology fitted to about a quarter of the plant from the outset.
All new coal plants would be required to have the technology fully fitted within five years of it being proven.
Miliband said in a statement to the Commons: “We will plan on the basis that CCS will be technically and economically proven by 2020.”
In public, energy companies welcomed Miliband’s proposals. While they are confident the technology can be made to work, in private some harbour doubts about how feasible it is to fully fit by 2025 and are concerned that they will have to foot the bill if they cannot.
One executive said: “If you are going to spend billions of pounds building a new power station which could be online in 2015
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