ENERGY firms were urged yesterday to make the region the big winner in a new £4bn “green” industry that promises to create up to 60,000 highquality jobs.

A Government consultation was launched into where to build up to four giant power stations that will burn coal for power without adding to global warming – pinpointing Teesside as a strong contender.

Ministers see the development of carbon capture and storage (CCS) as essential to Britain’s plans to slash carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.

Earlier this year, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband named Teesside, the Thames Gateway, the Firth of Forth, The Humber and Merseyside as ideal locations for the plants.

The Northern Echo then revealed that talks were already under way to build a CCS plant close to the Corus steelworks at Redcar.

Teesside is in the running partly because of its proximity to the abandoned oil and gas fields of the North Sea – an ideal location for storing the gas.

Now an independent study for Mr Miliband has put a price on the potential bonanza – a £2 to £4bn injection into the economy by 2030, and 30,000-60,000 jobs in engineering, manufacturing and procurement.

Energy companies have until September 9 to give their views on how to fund the CCS demonstration projects and whether to cluster the plants to save costs.

Projects will then be shortlisted and decision is expected next year.

Mr Miliband said: “By acting early, jobs will also be created as Britain develops the expertise in what could be a major new industry, with CCS projects offering the potential to form the hubs for clusters of low-carbon industries.”

The plants would be funded by a levy on electricity suppliers, estimated to slap a two per cent hike on household bills after 2020.

However, the policy is a gamble because the technology is unproven. There are no commercial-scale CCS plants anywhere in the world, merely a pilot plant in Germany.

As a result, the new coal plants will only be required to demonstrate CCS by trapping 25 per cent of emissions when they open, in about 2015.