AEA Technology PLC (AEA), the market leading environment and energy consultancy, has been appointed to run the first 18-month phase of the UK-China Near Zero Emissions Coal (NZEC) Initiative.  This initiative is a key element of the EU-China Partnership on Climate Change and aims to demonstrate coal fired power generation with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) in China. 

“This high profile project furthers our strategy of establishing AEA as the leading international advisor on energy and environmental issues to governments around the world, and in particular to China,” said Andrew McCree, CEO of AEA.

  “We now have multiple consultancy agreements working alongside the British Government and EU to advise the Chinese Government, and are playing an important role in helping China to balance its energy needs and sustainability commitments.”

AEA will manage the first phase of the NZEC project, which is being supported by up to £3.5m of funding from Defra and BERR.  The objectives of this assessment stage are to:

• Enable knowledge transfer between Chinese and UK parties (academic, industrial and other) and build capacity on CCS in China.
• Model the future energy requirements of China, taking CCS technology into account.
• Produce case studies of potential carbon dioxide capture technologies.
  

• Perform initial characterisation of selected sites suitable for CO₂ storage.
• Develop a roadmap for CCS in China drawing together the elements of the above objectives.

It is expected that the project will culminate with the building of a demonstration plant in China, to be commissioned by 2014.

In addition to AEA, the project will involve a consortium of key industrial and academic partners.  The UK partners are Air Products, ALSTOM Power, BP, British Geological Survey (BGS), Doosan Babcock, Heriot Watt University, Imperial College London and Shell.  Within China, the Administrative Centre for China’s Agenda 21 (ACCA21) will co-ordinate the input of the 20 Chinese partner organisations.