2024-10-18 06:11:06
Ørsted, a Denmark-based renewable energy company, will sell carbon credits worth 330,000 tonnes of CO2 to Norwegian petroleum refining company, Equinor, in a new 10-year deal to help finance its incoming biomass-based carbon capture and storage project.
The Equinor deal comes alongside the company’s “realisation... biomass-based carbon capture and storage is still at an early stage of development and associated with high costs,” according to a release.
It said the sale of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) credits, and support from the Danish Energy Agency, have been “crucial” to financing its Kalundborg CO2 Hub.
“Equinor shares Ørsted’s commitment to maturing carbon capture and storage technologies. We already have a partnership with Equinor and Nordsøfonden (Danish-state subsurface resource company) to explore the possibility of storing CO2 in the subsurface, and we’re pleased to expand the collaboration through this agreement on the sale of CDR credits,” said Ole Thomsen, head of Ørsted’s bioenergy business, in the release.
The hub, slated to open in 2026, is expected to capture 430,000 tonnes of biogenic CO2 annually from two of Ørsted’s biomass-fired combined heat and power plants.
Ørsted is a major consumer of Canadian wood pellets. The two plants linked to the hub are Ørsted’s wood chip-fired Asnæs Power Station in Kalundborg, western Zealand, and its Avedøre Power Station’s straw-fired boiler in the Greater Copenhagen area.
The CO2 captured will come from sustainable biomass and will be permanently stored under the North Sea seabed. In this way, CO2 will be removed from the atmosphere and is expected to contribute to negative emissions.
The company has launched similar deals with major carbon emitting companies in the past, including tech giant Microsoft. Equinor is looking to reduce its net scope 1 and 2 greenhouse
gas emissions by 50% by the end of 2030, compared to 2015 levels. A maximum of 10% can come from CDR credits, the remainder has to come from must absolute reductions. “We both share the belief that building markets enabling the physical reduction and removal of carbon will play a role in reducing emissions,” said said Svein Skeie, senior VP of business development at Equinor.
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