In the fight against climate change, BECCS has the potential to deliver gigatonne-scale, permanent carbon removals. Demand for carbon removals is set to increase 13 times the size of the 2021 market to 2.6 Gt by 2030, according to the World Economic Forum, as organisations across the planet search for realistic solutions to meet their climate commitments.

Drax has been pioneering BECCS projects that will remove CO₂ from the atmosphere in the US, UK and beyond. The company is not simply focused on advancing the technology, but is committed to ensuring that BECCS projects deliver the carbon benefits they promise are sustainable, and provide an equitable energy transition that everyone can benefit from.

There’s an urgent need for companies like Drax to develop high-quality carbon removal projects at scale. To do that, we sell CDR credits to organisations who can use them as part of their pathway to decarbonisation. However, the market for carbon removals is still tiny compared to the global need, and there are numerous barriers that prevent it from working properly.

What is BECCS and how does it work?  
Before getting into the details of the methodology, it might be helpful to explain BECCS and why we developed this methodology. BECCS is the process of capturing and permanently storing CO₂ from the atmosphere via the production of electricity from sustainable biomass. This is the only carbon removal technology that also generates low-carbon renewable power. The captured CO₂ is transported and stored in a secure, geological formation underground, producing permanent CDR.

Leading scientists agree that reducing emissions is not enough. We need to go further and faster with CO₂ removals. Drax is helping organisations achieve their sustainability goals by removing CO₂ and permanently storing it – allowing companies to rebalance their carbon footprints for good.

BECCS by Drax will generate millions of t/y of high integrity, permanent carbon removals in the UK, US and globally as early as 2030. In 2022, Drax announced what was at the time the world’s biggest CO₂ removals deal, and since then other customers have agreed to purchase carbon credits from Drax and other companies.

BECCS is the process of capturing and permanently storing CO₂ from the atmosphere via the production of electricity from sustainable biomass. This is the only carbon removal technology that also generates low-carbon renewable power.

BECCS methodology  
One of the key challenges the carbon removals market faces is around quality and how to assure customers, policymakers and the public that carbon removals are being delivered with integrity, offering a high-quality solution to the climate change crisis.

There has been a lot of critical press coverage about low-quality carbon credits – carbon credits where it’s unclear if the promised benefits will actually happen, or that have negative environmental and social consequences. This has led some to question whether carbon credits should have a role in global decarbonisation. But the fact is the world needs carbon removals – this is critical.

Indeed, all realistic pathways to limit global warming to 1.5°C require developing and deploying carbon removal technology at gigatonne scale along with a tripling of renewable energy capacity. BECCS is the only technology that currently supports the delivery of both these targets at the same time. It is essential that carbon removals are delivered at a high standard of quality and integrity, to deliver the net carbon removal benefits promised, and do so sustainably, so customers can have confidence buying and using them.

When Drax started on its journey to deliver BECCS projects, there were no global standards for BECCS. Therefore, we set out to produce a BECCS standard (or methodology), working closely with Stockholm Exergi. Our methodology primarily does three things:

1. Net carbon removal calculation: Sets a framework for calculating the net carbon removals from a BECCS project. At its core, the BECCS methodology is about accurately calculating the net CO₂ removals from BECCS. When customers buy a BECCS credit, they want to know that it represents a net tonne of CO₂ removed from the atmosphere. We start by measuring the CO₂ that we put into geological storage – that’s the CO₂ that we are permanently sequestering and removing from the atmosphere. To turn that into a net removal, we have to deduct any CO₂ that’s emitted as a result of the BECCS process. This involves a detailed calculation, measuring all supply chain emissions – such as transporting the biomass we use – and deducting those from the quantity of CO₂ we store, resulting in a net quantity of carbon removals. Our overall carbon removal efficiency is about 90%. When we sell a CDR credit to a customer, it’s a net tonne of carbon removed from the atmosphere that we are selling.

2. Set the bar for sustainable biomass sourcing: Establishes guardrails to ensure that BECCS developers only use biomass that has been sourced according to high sustainability standards. We know that customers want to be assured that only sustainable biomass is used to produce carbon removals that are permanent, verifiable and auditable. The BECCS methodology provides that biomass used for BECCS should only be taken from areas where the carbon stock is stable or increasing, must be harvested in a way that protects soil quality and biodiversity, cannot be taken from primary or old-growth forest, and cannot be used if the material is suitable for use in long-lived wood products.

3. Broader environmental and social justice safeguards: Creates broader safeguards around environmental and social justice. The methodology also includes safeguards around the impacts of projects on local communities and indigenous people, respect for human rights and gender equality.

BECCS and the future of carbon removal standardisation  
Earlier this year, our BECCS methodology was validated by Veritas (DNV). It was validated against international standard ISO 14064-2:2019 Greenhouse gases, part 2: Specification with guidance at the project level for quantification, monitoring and reporting of greenhouse gas emission reductions or removal enhancements.

Establishing comprehensive standards for measuring, reporting and verifying CO₂ removals delivered by BECCS has been challenging because it is a new technology and market. Developing standards for BECCS simply hadn’t been done before and taking that on had its complexities.

While universal standards for CO₂ removals are still something the industry is working toward, the energy industry has a myriad of different standards for its various technologies. This can be confusing for customers, and it’s not very helpful for project developers either. In the end, there should be global standards for these technologies, and those should be specified and endorsed by national and international regulators.

We’re seeing some steps in that direction. For example, the European Union (EU) is currently developing its Carbon Removals Certification Framework, which will set high-level requirements for carbon removal projects developed in the EU. When we developed our BECCS methodology, our intention was to influence these broader standards. Drax itself will never be a standards body. We are a project developer and it is important that standards bodies are independent. But, as project developers we have real expertise in the carbon accounting and sustainability principles that underpin biomass power generation and carbon capture, so we have proposed a set of principles to help raise the bar for BECCS standards globally moving forward.

Our work in developing the BECCS methodology is about more than just creating a framework for our own projects. It’s about setting a new benchmark for the industry. By ensuring that BECCS projects deliver high-quality carbon removals that are sustainable and socially responsible, we are helping to shape the future of the carbon removals market. As BECCS technology continues to evolve and scale, the standards we have developed will play a critical role in ensuring that the carbon removals market delivers on its promise to combat climate change effectively.

Angela Hepworth is also a member of the Energy Institute’s Energy Advisory Panel.

• Further reading: ‘(Carbon) credits where credit is due’. Are offsets a licence to pollute – or an effective economic incentive to cut carbon? Finance journalist Jennifer Johnson looks at the need for unambiguous certification schemes.
• Find out why scientific principles and transparency must lead the conversation about what ‘counts’ for carbon credits to build confidence in the voluntary carbon market (VCM), according to the Climate Crisis Advisory Group (CCAG). Meanwhile, new US research challenging the current thinking on the ocean’s role in storing carbon suggests proactive steps are needed to cut emissions now, rather than relying on these natural processes to ‘buy time’ to mitigate climate change.