Northern lights JV DA
Northern Lights is responsible for development and operation of CO2 transport and storage facilities, open to third parties.
ID: 873821341661-41
Lobbying Activity
Meeting with Bart Groothuis (Member of the European Parliament)
26 Sept 2024 · CCS
Response to Revision of the guidelines for trans-European Energy infrastructure
5 Mar 2021
Northern Lights is a newly incorporated company responsible for developing and operating CO2 transport and storage facilities, open to third parties, as part of Longship, the Norwegian Government’s full-scale carbon capture and storage project. It will be the first ever cross-border, open-source CO2 transport and storage infrastructure network and offers companies across Europe the opportunity to store their CO2 safely and permanently below the seabed on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. Phase one of the project will be completed in mid-2024 with a capacity of up to 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year.
The European Commission’s Proposal for a revised Regulation on TEN-E a is an important regulatory framework in the context of the development of a much-needed cross-border open infrastructure network for CO2 transport across Europe.
One of the thematic priority areas in the Regulation is ‘Cross-border Carbon Dioxide Networks’ which refers to transport infrastructure for captured CO2. These are currently defined as ‘dedicated pipelines, other than upstream pipeline network, used to transport anthropogenic carbon dioxide’.
CCS is an integral part of the European Commission’s scenarios to reach emission reduction targets. We share that view, CCS and carbon removal technologies are essential for Europe to reach its climate targets of net-zero by 2050. Furthermore, EU policy such as the Sustainable Finance Taxonomy, states that abatement technology such as CCS, when contributing to the activity in question reaching the set emission threshold, will be seen as eligible.
For these technologies to be efficient, CO2 transport and storage networks will be needed. Recognition within TEN-E for CO2 storage and all modes of transport in the CCS value chain should therefore be an important objective. CO2 storage should be included as part of integrated CO2 transport networks. CO2 storage facilities like the one being developed by Northern Lights, which are open-access and linked to cross-border CO2 transportation infrastructure, can help to provide solutions for decarbonisation across Europe, including CO2 mitigation for industrial clusters.
The Northern Lights ship based solution decouples offshore geological storage from emitters. It provides an open source network, where emitters from countries that do not have own storage capability or for other reasons are not able to develop such to make use of CCS as an effective decarbonisation measure. It also allows countries where CO2 storage is less publicly accepted to ship unavoidable emission for storage on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.
Summary:
The revised TEN-E should recognise alternative modes of transport, primarily by ships, barges, rail and trucks.
The Regulation should consider funding CO2 storage where storage is part of cross-border supply chains.
Repurposing and retrofitting of natural gas pipeline networks for the transport of CO2 should also be included. When combined with the existing provisions on pipeline transportation, these methods will expand access to CO2 storage for industrial facilities or other CO2 emitters that may not have efficient access to CO2 pipelines.
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