On September 28-29, the kick-off meeting of the CCUS ZEN (Zero Emission Network to facilitate CCUS uptake in industrial clusters) project was held in Paris, France, in which PGI-NRI is actively participating as one of the partners of a pan-European consortium implementing a grant funded by the EU Horizon Europe programme for the next 30 months.

This is a Coordination and Support Action project (CSA) on the development of a concept for the development/integration of CCUS infrastructure including existing clusters of industrial installations - CO2 emittants, potential CO2 storage sites and carbon transport routes (pipelines, ships), as well as analyses of related formal and legal frameworks.

The overarching goal of CCUS ZEN is the accelerated deployment of CCUS throughout Europe, which will be achieved by:

• Sharing knowledge and disseminating information important for stakeholders to make informed decisions on CCUS
• Developing specific and actionable plans for the development of CCUS value chains.
  
  

As CCUS developments around the North Sea (NS) region are relatively mature, CCUS ZEN will leverage these developments as best practice for the development of new CCUS value chains in the currently underdeveloped Baltic Sea (BS) and the Mediterranean Sea (MS) Regions. While CCUS value chains, i.e., the entire pathway from CO2 capture to transport to its eventual storage or utilization, can today be realized there, the industry is still in its infancy and many issues must be addressed to achieve the rapid deployment required. Starting from an analysis of the technical and non-technical state-of-play in the BS and MS regions, CCUS ZEN will select at least eight value chains (four in each region; including at least one in Poland) for detailed study and comparison with successful value chains from the NS region. One value chain from each analysed region will then be selected as most promising, with a detailed plan for further development. Through its knowledge-sharing activities and transfer of best practices from the NS region, CCUS ZEN will provide an information basis for the future CCUS value chains, including policy recommendations and a blueprint for CCUS value chain development, including easily accessible technology and CO2 source mapping, generic technical frameworks and business plan models.

The project is coordinated by SINTEF (Norway), and the implementing international consortium includes 14 research entities (including state geological surveys) and companies from Norway, Estonia, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Finland, Denmark, Turkey, France and the UK, brings together entities with leading expertise in all aspects of CCUS value chains, and works with a network of stakeholders representing industry, research organizations, associations, NGOs, clusters, ports and municipalities involved in the development and implementation of CCUS value chains.

The project kicked off with an inaugural meeting held on September 28-29, 2022 in Paris, in a hybrid format. The project's assumptions and plans, how it will be financed, the schedule and planned outputs of the project's various tasks, and the interdependencies between these tasks were presented, using existing and planned CCS value chains as examples.

PIG-PIB was represented at the inaugural meeting by Dr. Adam Wójcicki, who took part in a discussion of the work planned for the project for the coming months, and briefly presented the current status of CCS in Poland.

  pdf Information Brochure about the CCUS ZEN project prepared by the coordinator (524 KB)