Swedish municipal energy company Stockholm Exergi announced recently that it has made a final investment decision (FID) to build the world’s first large-scale bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) project at its Värtan biomass-fired CHP plant. Scheduled to begin operations in 2028, the BECCS facility will deploy carbon capture technology from Norway-based Capsol Technologies. Once operational, Stockholm Exergi’s BECCS facility will have the capacity to permanently remove up to 800ktCO2/y, setting a precedent for negative emissions projects worldwide.

Saipem has received a full notice to proceed after the successful financial closure of the project. The contract is worth approximately €600 million and covers the detailed engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning of the carbon capture, CO2 storage, and ship loading systems. 

Growing Capsol EoP project pipeline– Capsol has experienced increasing industry interest in its ‘CapsolEoP’ (end-of-pipe) solution, as demonstrated by a growing project pipeline. In total, Capsol has biomass and energy-from-waste (EfW) projects with a full-scale potential of 7.8 MtCO2 in the mature pipeline, representing a revenue opportunity of €80-115 million based on target licensing revenues of €10-15 per tonne installed capacity.

Potential to capture more than 130 MtCO2– The project’s progress coincides with positive policy developments in the US and EU, such as the EU’s Clean Industrial Deal which is expected to accelerate investment in CCS by providing additional financial incentives for industrial emitters.

There are 146 biomass heat and power plants in Europe with emissions that are made up of more than 50% biogenic carbon dioxide (bioCO2), totalling 50MtCO2/y. For EfW, an estimated 55 Mt bioCO2/y is emitted from 557 plants in Europe and North America, with the majority of the EfW plants located in Europe.

Technical validation– According to Capsol, CapsolEoP has 20-60% lower levelised capture cost relative to amine-based solutions, driven by energy efficiency. The technology also offers additional benefits for biomass and EfW plants, including simplified integration as a stand-alone unit and the use of the proven Hot Potassium Carbonate (HPC) solvent.

Stockholm Exergi was the first company to select Capsol’s solution for a large-scale carbon capture project, signing a licensing agreement for CapsolEoP in July 2022. Since then, the project and Capsol’s technology have been validated through several milestones, including:

• An EU Innovation Fund grant of €180 million
• Environmental permit approval by Sweden’s Land and Environmental Court
• An offtake agreement where Microsoft committed to acquiring 3.33 Mt of permanent carbon removals
• An offtake agreement where Frontier Group committed to acquiring carbon removals worth $49 million
• A commitment from the Swedish Energy Agency of €1.7 billion in funding
• An agreement with Northern Lights for transport and permanent storage of the captured CO2