Question reference: S6W-27152
- Asked by: Michael Matheson, MSP for Falkirk West, Scottish National Party
- Date lodged: 1 May 2024
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Current status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 15 May 2024
Question
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on how it is supporting the Scottish Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) Cluster to produce low carbon hydrogen at scale, as set out in its Hydrogen Action Plan.
Answer
The Scottish Government is committed to supporting the development of the Acorn project and the Scottish Cluster, which are essential for the production of low carbon hydrogen at scale. I attended the Inter-Ministerial Group in February and sit on the UK CCUS Ministerial Forum to represent Scottish interests and make the case for progress on Acorn to be accelerated. The Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy, and the previous Cabinet Secretary for Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy have also written to the UK Government in recent months to make the case for the acceleration of the Acorn project.
The decision to award the Acorn project is reserved to the UK Government and despite announcing in July 2023 that the Acorn project is ‘best placed’ to meet the criteria, there is still no final decision from the UK Government. This adds further delays to the deployment of CCUS in Scotland.