Scottish success in latest round of European CCUS funding

Scientists from across the Scottish Carbon Capture & Storage (SCCS) partnership have won a combined European funding total of €14.6mn for five innovative and ambitious three-year projects as part of joint bids with academic and industrial partners from across Europe, the US, Japan and Australia.

SCCS partner institutes are involved in five of the 12 projects that have secured support from the European Union’s highly competitive ERA-NET Accelerating CCS Technologies (ACT) second call.

Funding of €31.5mn has been made available for the ACT fund by 11 partner countries for research, development and demonstration (RD&D) and innovation for CO₂ capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS). The total project budget is €43.6mn, with private financing of €1.5mn and the remainder coming from the projects’ matched funding.

The ERA-NET ACT2 programme is co-funded by national research funding organisations from each ACT country. 

The five projects, which have been successful in securing funds are:

LAUNCH (Lowering Absorption Uncertainty and Costs by Predicting and Preventing Amine Degradation)
Project lead: TNO, The Netherlands
SCCS partner institute involved: The University of Edinburgh/SCCS Team
Total funding received from ACT: €5.1mn

The LAUNCH project aims to accelerate the uptake of CO₂ capture across industry through the development of novel capture solvents. It will develop and demonstrate novel solvents for post-combustion CO₂ capture, and will also establish a derisking mechanism to predict and control solvent degradation in order to improve both the performance and economics of CO₂ capture processes.

Dr Philippa Parmiter, SCCS Project Manager, says: ‘Solvent degradation reported in typical commercial post-combustion capture plants is not yet fully understood. The LAUNCH project will provide a database of information on solvent degradation, and we’ll also develop a generic test rig. Both of these, the database and the design of the test rig, will be made publicly available. That means CO₂ capture plant operators will have access to the tools and knowledge that will help them operate their plants in a controlled and cost-efficient way with reduced solvent loss. And solvent developers will have access to tools that will assist the design and validation of novel solvents.’

NEWEST-CCUS (Negative Emissions in the Waste-to-Energy Sector: Technologies for CCUS)
Project lead and SCCS partner institute involved: The University of Edinburgh/SCCS Team
Total funding received from ACT: €2.2mn

NEWEST-CCUS focuses on the development and deployment of CO₂ capture technologies tailored for waste-to-energy (WtE) plants. The project will also deliver a methodology for accounting for negative emissions and assess the size of the WtE CCS market to create regional roadmaps.

Dr Mathieu Lucquiaud, the University of Edinburgh, say: ‘In the context of net zero carbon targets, it is very important that we understand how waste-to-energy conversion with CCS can transform our municipal waste into a strategic resource to achieve negative carbon emissions, and that we develop models to value it accordingly.’

PrISMa (Process-Informed design of tailor-made Sorbent Materials for energy efficient carbon capture)
Project lead and SCCS partner institute involved: Heriot-Watt University
Total funding received from ACT: €2.1mn

PrISMa aims to accelerate the low-carbon transition in the energy and industrial sectors by developing a technology platform to deliver bespoke, cost-effective carbon capture solutions for a range of different CO₂ sources and CO₂ uses/destinations. 

SENSE (Assuring integrity of CO₂ storage sites through ground surface monitoring)
Project lead and SCCS partner institute involved: British Geological Survey (BGS)
Total funding received from ACT: €2.7mn

SENSE will advance fast, cost-effective monitoring techniques for CO₂ storage. The project team will develop new techniques and technologies, including geomechanical modelling, and use optimised data processing to provide an effective continuous monitoring option. This will support the verification of safe CO₂ storage at large scale, providing assurance for operators and regulators.

REX-CO₂ (Re-using existing wells for CO₂ storage operations)
Project lead and SCCS partner institute involved: British Geological Survey (BGS)
Total funding received from ACT: €2.5mn
The REX-CO₂ project will develop a procedure and tools for evaluating existing hydrocarbon wells for CO₂ storage, helping stakeholders make informed decisions on the potential re-use of certain wells or fields. A key output will be a software tool, developed – using case study evaluations from the six participating countries – for screening and assessing wells for their re-use potential.

Professor Mike Stephenson, British Geological Survey, says: ‘SENSE and REX-CO₂ are both important projects that will accelerate decarbonisation to help us combat climate change. BGS scientists working on SENSE are helping us to understand better how to monitor deep underground sites where carbon dioxide has been injected, to ensure the safety and sustainability of carbon capture and storage. In CO₂-REX, BGS is studying how already-existing infrastructure in oil and gas could be re-used for carbon capture and storage, making this vital technology cheaper and more practical.’