CCU Transnational Event success!
The event was organised as part of the Interreg Northern Connection project, aimed at increasing transnational innovation and collaboration around sustainable energy projects. The project’s Scottish partners, SE and Falkirk Council, brought together experts, businesses and public sector in Edinburgh, to discuss the opportunities and challenges of the Carbon Capture & Utilisation (CCU) industry in Scotland and collectively look at solutions for scaling up activity and addressing the industries key challenges.
CCU is a rapidly growing industry looking at opportunities for valorising and utilising CO2 as a feedstock in the manufacturing of products such as commodity chemicals, proteins, animal feeds and fuels to mention a few. Currently a waste product for many businesses and often emitted into the atmosphere, CO2 has the potential to become an additional revenue stream for many businesses while reducing their carbon footprint.
Grangemouth industrial complex and Acorn CCS were the challenges showcased at the event, both projects represented by Falkirk Council and Pale Blue dot respectively, helped scope the call to the North Sea Region partners inviting organisations, universities and businesses to present their ideas, technologies and services to help build CCU related opportunities within the projects. This resulted on 15 presentations from solutions providers, ranging from green energy generation, funding mechanism, CO2 capture and utilisation technologies.
In addition, 85 formal meetings took place amongst attendees looking for collaboration, expertise and technology solutions and so far, 14 individuals have confirmed that collaboration is possible following their meeting and 8 confirmed that collaboration was agreed at the meeting. This shows promising early results.
Watch the video from the B2B Matchmaking event in Scotland.
Key messages from the day were:
- Collaboration on this industry is essential, land owners, energy producers, CO2 emitters, technology companies and end markets need to work together to maximise the value of CO2 and develop commercially viable propositions.
- CO2 Utilisation and Storage are complementary, while utilisation focuses on manufacturing opportunities, storage looks at decarbonisation at large scale. CCU can however hugely benefit from the storage infrastructure to supply CO2 to the manufacturing sector.
- Governments need to clarify their commitment to support the CCU industry and encourage industry to reduce emissions.
The event showed there is great interest and commitment from industry to move forward the CCU opportunity. Scotland now has a CCU action plan, published in Sept 19, a national cluster for CCUS, NECCUS, and a CCUS Roadmap being compiled in 2020. So can Scotland become a world class CCUS hub and lead the way?
All information related to the event including presentations can be found in the event website.