Technical University of Denmark: DTU enters wide-ranging CCUS partnership

According to the Danish government’s climate programme, carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) has the potential to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by up to 4-9 million tonnes by 2030. However, even though the technologies in this field are well known, interdisciplinary efforts, greater collaboration, more research, and large-scale testing are still needed to make use of them.

DTU has therefore entered into a formally wide-ranging green CCUS partnership, INNO-CCUS, with representatives from the universities, public sector research, industry and the approved technological service institutes (GTS) in order to implement a Danish CCUS roadmap. The plan is to focus on short-term (2025), medium term (2030), and long-term (2050) solutions that will contribute to Denmark achieving its climate goals while at the same time supporting the establishment of new green industries, export opportunities, growth, and jobs.

The partnership’s vision is to achieve a fundamental change in the way we look at and exploit carbon resources, so that in future we can step completely away from fossil fuels and move instead to biogenic carbon sources.

The partnership and roadmap are supported by Innovation Fund Denmark which, based on the Danish Finance Act (Finanslov) 2021, has been tasked with investing a total of DKK 700 million in mission-driven green partnerships – including carbon capture, utilization, and storage.

Initially, this is a conditional commitment to the INNO-CCUS partnership by Innovation Fund Denmark. This means that a number of adjustments must be made before this CCUS partnership’s final investment agreement with Innovation Fund Denmark can be concluded and approved by the fund’s board.

An interim eight-man board has been appointed for the partnership, in which Morten Stage, Head of CCS at TotalEnergies, has been appointed chairman, while DTU Head of Department Professor Erling Stenby has been appointed vice chairman. The other members are: Bogi Bech Jensen, Director, Technology, Ørsted; Bjørn Kofod, Product Manager, Pentair; Head of Reservoir Department Maj Wendorff, State Geologist, GEUS; Sune D. Nygaard, Executive Vice President, Danish Technological Institute, Professor Andreas de Neergaard, Dean of RUC; and Professor Lasse Rosendahl, Head of Department, AAU.

In addition, a secretariat for the partnership will be established at DTU.