The European Commission signed grant agreements of €1.1 billion with seven large-scale projects via the EU Innovation Fund, funded by revenues from the EU's Emissions Trading System (ETS). These projects aim to reduce emissions by over 76 Mt of CO2eq during the first ten years of operation. The seven projects are deploying innovative low-carbon technologies at industrial scale, covering key sectors such as hydrogen, steel, chemicals, cement, solar energy, biofuels, and carbon capture and storage.

Projects:

Kairos@C: Located in the Port of Antwerp (Belgium), the Kairos@C project aims to create the first and largest cross-border carbon capture and storage value chain to capture, liquefy, ship, and permanently store CO2. Kairos@C will enable the deployment of several pioneering technologies that together have the potential to avoid the emission into the atmosphere of 14 Mt of CO2eq over its first ten years of operation.

BECCS at Stockholm: Located in Stockholm (Sweden), this project aims to create a full-scale Bio-Energy Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) facility at the existing heat and power biomass plant in Stockholm. Combining CO2 capture with heat recovery the project will avoid 7.83 Mt of CO2eq emissions during its first ten years of operation. This is more than the entire amount of greenhouse gas emissions from public sector electricity and heat production in Sweden in 2018.

Hybrit Demonstration: Located in Oxelösund and Gällivare (Sweden), the Hydrogen Breakthrough Ironmaking Technology Demonstration project (Hybrit Demonstration) aims to revolutionise the European iron and steel industry. It will replace fossil-based technologies with climate-neutral alternatives such as green hydrogen production and use. The project has the potential to avoid the emission of 14.3 Mt of CO2eq over its first ten years of operation. Moreover, it will use a technology associated with major climate benefits for the steel production sector.

Ecoplanta: Located in El Morell (Spain), this project will deliver a first-of-a-kind commercial plant for the European market, using waste that would otherwise end up in landfills. The plant will produce 237 kt/y of methanol, and thereby recover 70% of the carbon present in non-recyclable materials. The project will avoid the emission of 3.4 Mt of CO2eq over its first ten years of operation.

K6 Program: Located in Lumbres (France), the K6 Program aims to produce the first carbon-neutral cement in Europe, becoming a representative project for the cement industry worldwide and supporting the clean energy transition of a hard-to-abate sector. The project will deploy a first-of-a-kind industrial-scale combination of an airtight kiln and cryogenic carbon capture technology with CO2 storage in the North Sea site that otherwise would be emitted to the atmosphere. This will result in the avoidance of 8.1 Mt of CO2eq emissions over its first ten years of operation.

TANGO: Located in Catania (Italy), the TANGO project will develop an industrial-scale pilot line for the manufacturing of innovative, high-performance photovoltaic (PV) modules. It will multiply production capacity by 15, up from 200 MW to 3 GW per year. Once in operation, the produced modules will have the potential to avoid up to 25 Mt of CO2eq emissions over the first ten years. Moreover, the TANGO project will reinforce the value chain in the European upstream PV industry.

SHARC: Located at the Porvoo refinery (Finland), the Sustainable Hydrogen and Recovery of Carbon project (SHARC) will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by moving away from the production of fossil-fuel-based hydrogen toward both renewable hydrogen production (through the introduction of electrolysis) and hydrogen production by applying carbon capture technology. In the first ten years of operation, the SHARC project will avoid the emission of more than 4 Mt of CO2eq.