ELEGANCY – Enabling a low-carbon economy via hydrogen and CCS

As the only technology that can substantially reduce CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industrial processes, CCS is an essential component in the vast majority of IPCC scenarios with a likely global  global warming of 2°C or less. Indeed, without CCS, it will be extremely difficult to keep the rise in global temperature within the limits set by the Paris Agreement. Yet there is a large disconnect between policy ambitions and technology readiness – and industrial uptake. This is mainly due to the lack of a business model: costs are immediate, but the benefits are long term.

Overview of key ELEGANCY research
Overview of key ELEGANCY research

Project outreach events:

Similarly, the introduction of hydrogen (H2) as a low-carbon fuel for heating, cooling, transport and industrial processes has been slower than desired. However, as the natural gas (NG) reforming for H2 production also produces CO2 using existing or new processes, this can provide the economic driver needed to fast-track CCS commercial deployment.

The ELEGANCY project will therefore provide three crucial benefits:

  1. the decarbonization of heating and transport based on an existing fuel and infrastructure,
  2. a commercial model for industrial CCS,
  3. the opportunity to broaden public awareness of CCS.

This includes large-scale CO2 transport and storage infrastructure for use by other sectors, as well as infrastructure for the rapid introduction of H2 as an energy carrier, thus also opening the door for H2 generated from spare capacity in renewable sources. It will also enable Europe to export extensive knowledge, products and technologies worldwide.

TCCS-10

The bi-annual Trondheim CCS Conference has become a globally leading scientific CCS technology conference. Since its inception in 2003, the Conference has developed to be an essential meeting place for over 400 CCS experts. The Conference typically has 150 oral presentations, five or six parallel sessions, over 100 posters and world leading keynote speakers.

The 10th Trondheim CCS Conference is an internationally leading CCS conference. It was held June 17-19 in Trondheim, Norway. At the Conference, international researchers, policy makers, industry and academia gathered to present and discuss the latest CCS research.

 

Building on the ground-breaking findings of the DYNAMIS project, ELEGANCY R&D will provide innovative, cutting edge solutions to key technical challenges for H2-CCS chains – on both a systems and component level. This includes CO2 transport, injection and storage, as well as H2-CO2 separation – directly increasing the TRL of selected components to 5 where large-scale demon-stration is possible. It will take the most up-to-date experimental data and advance it using world-class research infrastructure, such as ECCSEL and EPOS facilities. To enable application of this research, ELEGANCY will also develop an innovative, open-source design tool for a fully integrated H2-CCS chain. Finally, taking a fully integrated approach, the project will study business development oppor-tunities, public perceptions of CCS and any environmental aspects of H2-CCS chains. The goal: to fast-track European CCS in the 2020s.

ELEGANCY is an ERA-Net Cofund ACT project

  • Project duration: 31 August 2017–31 August 2020
  • Total budget: 15.6 MEUR
  • Funding: Norwegian, Dutch, German, UK and Swiss national funding agencies, the European Commission and industry
  • Number of partners: 22
  • Coordinator: SINTEF Energy Research

Featured story: ELEGANCY Conference

The ELEGANCY Conference was held on 8 November in Brussels with great success. Click the link to view video interviews of partners and external stakeholders giving their opinions on CCS and hydrogen.

View all interviews here. 

Read a summary of all presentations here.

Find all slides here.

The ELEGANCY Consortium meeting was arranged on 9 November. Read a summary and view pictures here.

Elegancy Conference 2018 summarized