Delivery of industrial CCUS clusters – Societal Readiness pilot

Expected Outcome:

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following outcomes:

1. Near-to-market solutions for the safe integration and use of CCUS technologies in the energy- and carbon-intensive industry;
2. A pipeline of projects that have the potential for commercial scale-up.
3. Deeper understanding of the needs and concerns of diverse social groups involved in or potentially affected by the R&I development of the technology, thereby increasing the potential for beneficial societal uptake and building trust in results and outcomes.

Scope:

Projects are expected to be the de-risking first step to develop local or regional industrial CCUS clusters, i.e. (multi) source and (multi) sink solutions for the decarbonisation of the hard-to-abate industries of the region. Projects are expected to be the basis and orientation for future full-size projects. To maximise the impact, projects should have a substantial industrial involvement.

Projects should address most, but not necessarily all of the below issues:

• Detailed planning and preparation for retrofitting capture systems to existing industrial plants;
• Demonstrating important system components;
• Identification and characterisation of the clustering potential of (cross-border) regional CO2 emitters;
• Optimisation of industrial symbiosis between emitters and potential users of CO2;
• Development of tools to optimise the design and operation of the cluster(s) and operate CO2 streams with different compositions, flow rates and operating regimes to comply with the constraints for the shared transport and storage infrastructure;
• Identification of potential regional users of a common CO₂ infrastructure (this could also include enlargement counties, such as the Western Balkans, Ukraine and Moldova);
• Comprehensive economic and technical assessment to identify the best (multimodal) transport options, including the re-use of existing infrastructure;
• Development of business models for regional CO2 transport networks, including for dispersed industrial sites to link these to larger industrial clusters or pipeline networks;
• Consideration of feasible CO2 geological storage services
• Comprehensive set of studies and preparatory actions leading to permitting;
• Scenarios for integrating CO2 infrastructure in (plans for) regional, national and/or cross-border energy networks (electricity, hydrogen, natural gas), also in relation to future changes in industrial landscape and energy supply mix.

Projects are expected to deliver a strategy for the exploitation of results that includes plans for scalability, commercialisation, deployment, permitting procedures, and identified public and private funding sources for CAPEX and OPEX, like private equity, the InvestEU, the EU Catalyst Partnership, the Innovation Fund, and possibly the Regional Development policy funds.

For CO2 capture, transport, utilisation and (in particular onshore) geological storage, public acceptability is paramount. Therefore, projects are expected to identify and engage relevant end users and societal stakeholders (such as civil society organisations, non-governmental organisations, and local associations) in deliberative activities, so as to consider and respond to their needs and concerns.

This topic is a Societal-Readiness pilot:

• Proposals should follow the instructions applying to the Societal Readiness pilot, as described in the introduction of the Horizon Europe Main Work Programme 2026-2027 for Climate, Energy and Mobility. They entail the use of an interdisciplinary approach to deepening consideration and responsiveness of R&I activities to societal needs and concerns.
• This topic requires effective contribution of the relevant SSH expertise, including the involvement of SSH experts in the consortium, to meaningfully support Societal Readiness. Specifically, SSH expertise is expected to facilitate the socio-technological interface and enable the design of project objectives with Societal Readiness related activities.

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