Apprentices from Protos ERF meet Energy Minister at carbon capture skills event

Apprentices from Encyclis’ Protos Energy Recovery Facility (ERF) travelled to the Houses of Parliament this week to meet with Energy Minister Michael Shanks MP about career opportunities emerging from carbon capture deployment in the UK.

The engineering apprentices, John Poole and Daniel Lee, both aged 16, spoke to the Minister about their exciting opportunity to work at the UK’s first decarbonised Energy-from-Waste facility, at Encyclis’ Protos ERF in Cheshire.

Having joined Encyclis’ UK apprenticeship programme in 2025, the young recruits are two of the four Protos ERF apprentices currently studying full-time at college as work on the landmark plant continues to move towards full-scale operations.

They were among the guests invited to a parliamentary reception in the House of Commons, hosted by the Carbon Capture and Storage Association (CCSA). The event – Delivering CCUS: Building the Workforce & Skills for the UK’s Industrial Transition – showcased emerging career opportunities in the sector.

After delivering a keynote address on the environmental and economic benefits of carbon capture and storage deployment in the UK, Minister Shanks met the Encyclis apprentices to discuss their interest in the sector and future ambitions.

“It was an amazing opportunity to go inside the Houses of Parliament and talk about the jobs we’ll be doing at Protos ERF,” said John, who is an electrical, control and instrumentation (EC&I) apprentice.

Daniel, who is a process engineering apprentice, added: “It’s so exciting that we’ll be working at the forefront of our industry, at the first UK Energy-from-Waste plant with carbon capture, and helping to create a cleaner future where waste goes to good use, producing electricity and reducing carbon dioxide emissions.”

The Protos carbon capture project is now in construction and will prevent the release of around 370,000 tonnes of CO2 per year when it starts operating in 2029. It was one of two sites in the HyNet North West industrial decarbonisation cluster which secured a public-private funding agreement in 2025 as part of the Government’s £22bn decarbonisation drive.

The carbon capture plant will be linked to Protos ERF, which is now in the final stages of commissioning and will provide an essential service by safely processing up to 500,000 tonnes of the region’s non-recycled waste while producing 49.9MW of baseload electricity and recovering resources for reuse in support of the circular economy transition.

Mark Burrows-Smith, CEO at Encyclis, said: “Developing and supporting the next generation of operational and maintenance engineers is one of our core goals at Encyclis. We want to help build the workforce of the future and that’s why we launched our apprenticeship programme last year across our cluster of Energy-from-Waste facilities in the UK Midlands. What’s particularly exciting for the apprentices at Protos ERF is that they’ll be working on the first UK energy recovery facility with carbon capture, and one of only a handful in the world. Our apprentices will be starting their careers at the forefront of industrial decarbonisation.”