CASH will be on offer to help develop a pioneering and job-creating North-East green energy project, a Government official has hinted.

The Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) gave a warm welcome to plans for Teesside to lead Europe in carbon capture and storage (CCS), at a Westminster launch today (Wednesday, January 21).

Four energy intensive companies have formed the Teesside Collective, to jointly store carbon dioxide emissions from their plants, which are blamed for damaging climate change.

They hope to sign up many other firms to develop a pipeline network which could permanently store the CO2 under the North Sea.

Tees Valley Unlimited local enterprise partnership (TVU) has already been awarded £1m by the Government to develop a business case, which should be completed by the summer.

Dan Osgood, DECC director, hinted more could be on offer, suggesting the UK would fail to meet its commitments to cut carbon emissions unless such technology is in place by 2030.

Mr Osgood said he was delighted by the Teesside initiative, telling the launch it could play an absolutely central role in tackling climate change.

He said: “We are very keen to work with partners to discuss possible funding mechanisms to support industrial carbon capture and storage in the future.”

The barriers to the technology “are understood and can be got over”, Mr Osgood added.

The four firms behind the Teesside Collective are Redcar steelmaker SSI UK and process industry firms Boc, Lotte Chemical UK and Growhow, which face rising bills for carbon permits.

For that reason, a CCS-equipped industrial zone would be a “magnet for industrial investment”, Dr David Lockyer, of Boc said.

Companies from overseas had told him the money-saving technology would “make a big difference” to their investment decisions.

And Sandy Anderson, TVU’s chairman, said: “This is not just about survival, but creating the conditions for growth in existing businesses and for attracting new, growing technologies.”

The move comes after the Government was accused of “abandoning” Teesside after similar plans for CCS at power stations were dropped.

The Teesside Low Carbon project hoped to create 250 direct jobs, and work for 1,000 construction staff, on the Wilton International chemical complex, near Redcar.

But it lost out in a Government competition in 2013 and told it would only receive funding if the two chosen schemes, in Aberdeenshire and Selby, in Yorkshire, drop out.

However, unlike CCS in power stations, the capture of CO2 at industrial plants is a proven technology, which is already up and running in the US.

TVU is not seeking immediate extra Government funding for the Teesside Collective, for a project expected to cost tens of millions of pounds or more.