In 2019, a partnership between BP and German energy supplier ENBW agreed to pay £231 million ($290 million) annual option fee alone.
While the offshore wind industry booms, Crown Estate has its eye on the next opportunity to cash in on its undersea empire: carbon storage. The seabed around the UK has room for storage 78 billion tons carbon dioxide—more than enough space to contain the country’s annual emissions for 200 years. Increasingly, the North Sea is seen as a destination for storing carbon gained from industries that are difficult to decarbonise, including steel, cement and fertilizer production.
“As the science of climate change evolves, we realize that decarbonizing electricity alone is not enough. We also need to reduce emissions and decarbonize other industries, other sources of emissions,” said Jonathan Pearce, head of carbon dioxide storage at the UK Geological Survey.
While it remains the heart of the UK’s fossil fuel industry, the North Sea could play an important role in the country’s decarbonisation plans. In 2019, the Committee on Climate Change—a public body that advises the government—concluded that carbon capture and storage was “a necessity, not an option” if the UK were to want to achieve your goal. legally binding target of reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Esin Serin, policy analyst at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, said carbon storage schemes had a rough start. IN 2011 and 2015 the government has canceled major carbon capture and storage projects, drawing criticism from people who say The UK has been slow to capitalize on its natural storage assets. That is starting to change. Serin said the government’s commitment to net zero carbon “is a watershed moment for carbon capture, use and storage,” Serin said.
The UK has set a target of capturing up to 30 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year by 2030, with the first carbon capture clusters centered around industrial towns and cities in the north-east and north-west of England. “There is a real global competition right now to see who will reap the economic and industrial benefits from the world’s effort to strive for net zero emissions,” says Serin.
All of which means that the Crown Estate now sits on another valuable property deep under the sea. The site is responsible for granting the right to store carbon on the seabed around England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as leasing pipes that deliver carbon dioxide to these underground storages, most of which are located in the North Sea. The storage permit is approved by the North Sea Transit Authority (NSTA), a public agency that regulates the oil, gas and carbon storage industries in the North Sea.
To date, the NTSA has issued seven undersea carbon storage permits across the UK. One of those permits—issued in 2013 to Shell—has expired, so there are now six active carbon storage permits, including five locations in the North Sea and one site in the Irish Sea west of the country. Older brother. In September 2022, NSTA closed its bidding for the first round of public carbon storage licensing after receiving bids from 19 companies for the 13 carbon storage sites provided. But any company that wants to transport and store carbon under the sea will also need to buy the rights from the Crown Estate. So far only one project holds a rental agreement from Crown Estate: part of the North Sea being explored by a partnership between BP, Carbon Sentinel and Equinor New Energy for its carbon storage potential.
