E.ON has confirmed that it will not proceed to the next stage of the UK government's carbon capture and storage (CCS) competition as its Kingsnorth project could not meet the required timescales.

The company’s Kingsnorth project was one of two schemes selected as part of the government’s competition, with the aim to build the UK’s first commercial CCS scheme.

With the market still not favorable for constructing the 1,600MW super-critical power station, it had become clear that Kingsnorth could not meet the project timetable.

E.ON UK chief executive Paul Golby said having postponed Kingsnorth last year, it has become clear that the economic conditions are still not right for the company to progress the project and so, simply put, it has no power station on which to build a CCS demonstration.

"We therefore took the decision to withdraw from the government’s competition because we cannot proceed within the competition timescales," Golby said.

The company is currently undertaking a front end engineering and design study at the Kingsnorth project.

The existing Kingsnorth power station is due to close by the end of 2015 at the latest under the EU’s Large Combustion Plant Directive.