The Crown Estate and Crown Estate Scotland have begun the first round of formal engagement with developers on Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS). The two organisations have issued a joint survey to industry stakeholders to explore and understand market requirements for future seabed and subsurface carbon store development.

The results are expected to shape future strategy for carbon store leasing.

The survey will seek input on two key topics:

1. The number of stores, capacity levels, and annual injection rates that developers might seek to be in place by 2035 and by 2050;
2. The opportunities and challenges to meeting these aims.

As the UK’s potential future carbon stores are located across the geographical remits of The Crown Estate and Crown Estate Scotland, this joint exercise is designed to help reduce the number of market engagement responses for developers and drive momentum toward setting leasing round requirements. Feedback will be shared with the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), which is responsible for carbon capture licensing, and The Crown Estate and Crown Estate Scotland will publish an anonymised summary of the main findings.

Philippa Parmiter, Gas Storage Development Manager for Crown Estate Scotland, said: “Crown Estate Scotland is pleased to be working in partnership with The Crown Estate on this vitally important engagement, because in order for challenging decarbonisation targets to be met, CCUS capacity and know-how will need to expand.

The Scottish and UK Governments have set target dates of 2045 and 2050 respectively to meet net-zero carbon emissions. Achieving these will require an energy system that is cleaner, greener and uses a broader range of technologies to generate power. Combined with other renewable technologies, such as fixed and floating offshore wind, CCUS will play a key role in decarbonising our economy by supporting power generation and heavy industry with hard-to-abate emissions, mitigating the effects of CO2 on the atmosphere.

Both organisations are working to understand market expectations on CO2 storage, and to support delivery of the Sixth Carbon Budget (CB6) and the UK Government’s target to have four active stores in UK waters by 2030.

Further information can be read here.