Plans unveiled for £200m Deeside carbon capture facility

Enfinium wants to make Parc Adfer in Flintshire capable of storing the 235,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide it produces as a by-product annually.

The firm is planning to invest £200m on a carbon capture facility at the Deeside complex that would allow it to become a net saver of CO2 emissions.

Enfinium is seeking government support for the scheme, which its chief executive claims would make Parc Adfer “the largest generator of carbon-negative power in Wales”.

“To deliver a net zero carbon economy, Wales needs to find a way to produce carbon removals, or negative emissions, at scale,” said Mike Maudsley.

Carbon capture is the process by which carbon dioxide is diverted deep underground rather than being released into the atmosphere.

Waste from the Anglesey, Gwynedd, Conwy, Denbighshire, and Flintshire local authority areas is sent to Parc Adfer to be turned into hydrogen, a process that generates CO2, rather than ending up in landfill.

The carbon captured at Parc Adfer would be transported using the pipeline network currently being developed in the region for the HyNet carbon capture cluster, one of the first two priority carbon capture clusters selected for development in the UK.

Ben Burggraaf, chief executive of Net Zero Industry Wales, said Flintshire has an important role to play in the country’s green economy.

“North-East Wales has an exciting opportunity to leverage technologies like carbon capture and hydrogen to produce the sustainable goods and services of the future,” he said.

“It is critical that projects like those at Parc Adfer move forward as quickly as possible to maintain our competitive advantage over other countries.”

Planning for the project is due to begin later this year. Project partners are expected to find out this summer if they have been successful in their bid for government funding.