Ministers have not explained how new power plant helps net zero goal, court told

The Government has failed to “adequately” explain how a new gas power station in north-east England forecast to emit millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases will help deliver its net zero commitment, the High Court has been told.

Environmental consultant Andrew Boswell is taking legal action against ministers over the granting of development consent for the Net Zero Teesside Project by the former Tory government in February.

On Tuesday, his lawyers argued that the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) had not given “legally adequate reasons” for backing the project despite recognising its emissions would have “significant adverse effects”.

The department is opposing the bid to bring a legal challenge at a two-day hearing in London, arguing the project is a “necessary” part of the country’s decarbonising plan.

The plans for an electricity-generating station will feature “full chain” carbon capture usage and storage (CCUS) technology where “the capture, compression, transportation, and permanent storage of carbon dioxide is implemented within a single project”, Dr Boswell’s legal team told the court.

Developer Net Zero Teesside Power, a joint venture between energy firms BP and Equinor, says on its website that the project will create thousands of jobs and generate electricity to power 1.3 million homes.

It claims up to two million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year would be captured and transported to storage sites under the North Sea.

Catherine Dobson, for Mr Boswell, said in written arguments that the consultant had exposed “a large double-counting error” and other “methodological flaws” over the calculations of the greenhouse gases the station may emit.

She said developers had “subtracted the carbon capture from the project twice” and “refuted three times the claim that it had double-counted carbon removals”.

She said the final assessment that it may contribute more than 20,450,719 tonnes of “carbon dioxide equivalent” into the atmosphere over its lifetime was “significantly greater” than previous calculations.

“In those circumstances, the secretary of state’s conclusion that the project was not only reconcilable with achieving the Government’s net zero targets, but would positively help with achieving that target, needed to be adequately explained, but was not,” Ms Dobson said.

The barrister argued there was “a demonstrable flaw in the reasoning” which led to the development consent decision and the Government took an unlawful approach when assessing the need for the project.

Rose Grogan, representing the DESNZ, said in written arguments that a judge should reject a bid to “pursue yet another challenge to important national infrastructure”.

She said the consent decision contained lawful and “adequate” reasons which a minister was “entitled to reach in the legitimate exercise of (their) planning judgment”.

Ms Grogan said: “Fossil fuel energy generation with CCUS is a necessary element of the UK’s transition to decarbonising the energy sector as it provides a source of dispatchable energy to support intermittent sources such as renewable energy.”

She added that government policy said “it will not be possible to develop the necessary amounts of infrastructure to meet government’s energy objectives without some significant adverse residual impacts” and that “the need for energy infrastructure is urgent and considerations of need should be afforded substantial weight”.

The barrister said the Government had “balanced need and climate change impacts together with all of the other positive and negative impacts of the scheme” and concluded that “the benefits of the scheme outweighed the harms”.

Hereward Phillpot KC, for Net Zero Teesside Power Limited and Net Zero North Sea Storage Limited, said in written arguments that the “first-of-a-kind” project would help provide “a back-up function when renewable generation is low” and was part of efforts to decarbonise “nearly 50% of the UK’s total industrial cluster emissions”.

The barrister said gas power provided “vital flexibility to support an increasing amount of low-carbon generation and maintain security of supply”, adding that the scheme aimed to achieve a carbon capture rate of at least 95%.

The previous government’s decision to back the project was “cogent, intelligible and legally adequate”, he added.

The hearing before Mrs Justice Lieven is due to end on Wednesday, with a ruling expected at a later date.