The decision on the future of Kingsnorth Power Station could face further delays.

Controversial plans to build two new coal-fired units at the plant, near Hoo, are still being considered by the government.

The Department for Energy and Climate Change has denied the decision is imminent, despite claims in a national newspaper the government is poised to back the plans.

Energy giant E.ON, which owns Kingsnorth, has said the new units will be “carbon capture ready”, to allow the option of retrofitting technology with the potential to capture up to 90 per cent of carbon emissions.

The government has indicated that if Kingsnorth is given the go-ahead, it must be carbon capture ready, but has not yet defined exactly what this means. The consultation into what will be required to make a coal-fired power station carbon capture-ready closed in September 2008 and the government is currently considering the responses to it.

E.ON requested the planning decision should be delayed until after the government had completed this consultation. The planning application has caused a divide among cabinet ministers.

Some believe the decision should be delayed until the result of the government’s carbon capture and storage demonstration competition.

Kingsnorth is among four projects in the running for £1 billion to test the technology. According to a department spokesman, the result of the competition is not expected until later this year or early next year.

Medway Council considered the Kingsnorth proposals in January 2008 and chose not to raise any objections, but Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband still has discretion to order an inquiry in light of objections to the plans.

The government has received more than 1,000 letters of objection.