WP2 is dedicated to the global technical coordination of the project and act as the independent regulator for licence applications and economic assessments. WP2 will also draw out generic learnings from the sites for the EU regulatory process; and generate best practice guidance on the licensing process.
Technical coordination
The objective is to ensure that the evolving workflow is correctly applied on the sites studied in the project so that all key elements of the characterisation workflow are addressed in one or more of the site-specific WPs. The proper feedback from the site work to the integrative WP1 (development of the workflow) will be essential to iteratively improve the workflow: any issues that arise when applying the workflow to a specific site will be analysed, resolved and disseminated among the project.
Economic evaluation of the costs for site development, based on likely injection design
The objective is to perform a systematic and comparable economic assessment of several sites, including identification of principle cost uncertainties, in order to define the economic profitability
of the project . This will inform considerations by policy makers of the costs of CO2 storage. This calls for the definition of systematic methodology for collecting cost data, the collection of cost data (Capex and Opex estimates) for the different sites, and the evaluation of the project feasibility in computing the Net Present Value and profitability of the project.
Regulatory steering and Licensing
The objective is to ensure ongoing compliance with the regulatory requirements. A project Advisory Panel on regulatory matters will be established, comprising specialists and industrial stakeholders from within SiteChar plus ad hoc invitees from national and European regulatory bodies. The Advisory Panel will periodically evaluate all of the site characterisation activities to ensure that they remain consistent with the regulatory requirements, both at international level (e.g. EU Directive, OSPAR) and also from national standpoints. Finally ’dry-run’ storage licence application documents will be produced by selected sites. These will include inter alia:
- a detailed injection plan including definition of the Storage Complex;
- a geological characterisation of the Storage Complex;
- forecast models of site performance (e.g. plume migration, pressure evolution) including uncertainty ranges
and plans for iterative updating as monitoring data becomes available;
- Risk Assessment and Plans for iterative updating;
- Monitoring Plan (including post-closure);
- outline methodology for site closure and abandonment, including some consideration of high-level acceptance criteria for transfer of liability to the state;
The dry-runs will be reviewed and assessed by the Advisory Panel, with key strengths and weakness identified.
The ‘dry-run’ site applications will allow precise assessment of the level and type of geological characterisation and performance prediction which is required to demonstrate understanding of long-term storage behaviour in a range of geological and geographical settings.
Technical recommendations for storage site characterisation in Europe
Best practice guidance on storage licence application (regulatory, technical and public consultation aspects) will be produced. It is furthermore planned to extend the conclusions derived from the sites studied in SiteChar to the large scale deployment of CCS in Europe. This will be accomplished by synthesising the experiences acquired on the case studies into recommendations for the European Commission.
SiteChar will thus identify and address issues met on specific elements of the workflow that could limit or compromise this deployment and will provide a breakdown of the scientific, technical and social bottlenecks that may require further investigations in order to achieve readiness for large-scale implementation of CO2 storage in Europe.