STORREGA, which is leading the drive to develop a carbon, capture and storage cluster in Scotland, has recruited an expert on the regulatory system after the project failed to win the support the company was seeking from the UK Government.
In October the Scottish cluster was beaten by two projects covering northern England and Wales in the race to win fast track status under an official plan to encourage the development of CCS facilities.
The decision was a big setback for Storrega after the company won backing from international investors and from business leaders in Scotland for its plans for the cluster. These were developed out of work on the Acorn project, which will involve shipping emissions from Aberdeenshire for storage in the Goldeneye reservoir in the North Sea.
Storrega said it has appointed Nicola Cocks into a new role as Head of Policy & Regulation at the company, following a career in which she has served as regulation director at Thames Water and held senior roles at the energy regulator Ofgem and professional services firm KPMG.
“Nicola has done the hat trick of working at a regulator, a major consultancy, and in industry so we feel very lucky to have her expertise on our leadership team,” said Storrega’s chief executive Nick Cooper.
“Engaging positively with various government offices to establish supportive regulatory frameworks is vital to the country’s success in decarbonising our environment.”
Signalling his continued confidence in the Scottish cluster plan Mr Cooper added: “Success is worth fighting for. We have huge potential to smash our net zero targets, and become a world leader in decarbonisation technologies and operations.”
The Westminster Government has designated the Scottish Cluster as the reserve cluster, in case discussions with a Track-1 project falter. It is hoped Track-1 schemes will be operational by the mid 2020s.
The Scottish cluster will continue to receive support under the Government’s plans to have a second wave of schemes operational by 2030.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here