APRIL 28TH 2021

ConsenCUS: innovation and collaboration on carbon capture, utilisation and storage

Is using renewable electricity to capture and convert industrial CO₂ emissions realistic at a large scale? What can you do with it after capture, and how do local communities participate in the profits? Coval Energy participates in an international consortium led by New Energy Coalition and University of Groningen that will answer these questions in the European innovation project ConsenCUS – Carbon neutral clusters through electricity-based innovations in Capture, Utilisation and Storage.Industrial and academic partners from The Netherlands, Denmark, United Kingdom, Romania, Greece, China and Canada have joined forces to make electrochemical CO₂ emission reduction possible worldwide. From April 1st, 2021, over €13 million of European funds and private investments will enable scaling up technological innovations and conducting socio-economic research. A mobile demo plant will be constructed that will capture up to 0.1 ton CO₂ per hour at cement production, oil refinery and magnesia production across Europe and convert it to useful chemicals (potassium formate and formic acid). In the same locations, the opportunities or challenges that the CO2 clusters bring to the local economy, geology and community will be studied.

International cooperation for an international challenge

Several crucial European industrial sectors emit CO₂ as an inherent part of their production process (e.g. cement, magnesia or refinery). To meet European climate targets, this CO₂ will have to be captured and used or stored (known as CCUS). So far, CCUS only takes place in a few locations worldwide and often uses additional fossil fuels for the boilers that regenerate the CO₂-absorbing material. The ConsenCUS consortium wants to make capture and conversion possible with (green) electricity so that it can be done more sustainably and even climate-neutral. The innovation action includes designing so-called CO₂ clusters, such that regional companies can work together with governments and citizens to make smart investments in shared infrastructure (such as pipelines or temporary storage locations) to reach net-zero carbon emissions safely.

Coval Energy’s role 

Within ConsenCUS, Coval Energy is responsible for the direct CO₂ conversion to formate using high-pressure technology. This process can produce potassium formate at high purity, with marginal cost that can compete with formate production via conventional fossil-fuel-based chemical processes. Based on the current development and further optimisation of the technology, a formate production of 14 ton per year is considered an achievable target to be reached within the project. Coval Energy expects the ConsenCUS project to be the major stepping stone to commercialisation.

About Coval Energy

Coval Energy develops ground-breaking CO₂ reduction and utilisation solutions. The company is bringing technologies from initial idea to pilot plant and is engaging strategic licensing partners with capital and expertise to scale out to commercial scale. Since its inception in 2015, Coval Energy’s team of experienced scientists has developed several technology platforms that address the need in a wide variety of markets to significantly reduce CO₂ emissions.

About ConsenCUS

ConsenCUS is a 4-year international Innovation Action under the Horizon 2020 framework of the EU. It investigates how electrochemically driven carbon capture, and conversion innovations can combine with safe transport and/or storage through economically viable networks and clusters, with specific attention for the interaction of local communities with the technological developments.

The consortium consists of University of Groningen, New Energy Coalition, Wetsus, Coval Energy (NL), Danish Technological University, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, Danish Gas Technology Centre, Aalborg Portland (DK), Heriot-Watt University, Robert Gordon University, OGTC Ltd, British Geological Survey (UK), Center for Research and Technology Hellas, Grecian Magnesite (GR), OMV Petrom, Energy Policy Group (RO), Zhejiang University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (CN) and University of Calgary (CA).