Beccs Stockholm: delivering net carbon removals with clean energy

The Beccs Stockholm project will transform Stockholm Exergi’s existing co-generation biomass plant into a full-scale Bio-Energy Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) facility that captures biogenic Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) and stores it permanently underground, thus creating negative emissions and removing CO₂ from the atmosphere.

Stockholm Exergi, Stockholm’s heat and electricity provider, currently utilises biomass consisting of forestry residues like branches, bark, and tops harvested from nearby forests to produce energy. The new BECCS facility will transform this infrastructure and make it fit for capturing CO₂ by mixing hot potassium carbonate with effluent gas from the cogeneration plant (HPC method). Following successful trials at Exergi’s test facility, this marks the very first time that this cutting-edge method of capturing CO2 will be used on a scale this large. The captured CO₂ will then be liquefied and transported to a site for permanent storage.

The Beccs Stockholm project has the potential to avoid around seven million tonnes of CO₂ over its first ten years of operation, equivalent to almost one fifth of Sweden’s total CO₂ emissions in 2022. Large amounts of heat recovered from the capture plant will be fed into the local district heating network, substituting the use of other, more costly units for heating and optimising the energy supply to the city. In addition, the project aims to create up to 20 new permanent local jobs and 1 500 jobs per year during the design and construction phase.

The project was awarded €180 million from the Innovation Fund, one of the world’s largest support programmes for net-zero and innovative technologies, funded by EU Emissions Trading System revenues. It aims to make a substantial contribution to achieving climate neutrality in Europe by 2050. Furthermore, the project is actively contributing to the development of a methodology for the certification of carbon removals from Bio-CCS, which will spearhead the development of a new market for carbon removals.

Per Ytterberg, project manager for Beccs Stockholm, said: “I’m most proud that we, as a relatively small company in the energy sector, are paving the way for an entire new industry that will significantly contribute to reaching the Paris agreement.”

Beccs Stockholm secured the environmental permit on 28 March 2024 and the project should start construction by the second quarter of 2025. The project aims to start capturing CO₂ by sometime in late 2028.