New Innovation Fund awards underscore growing market demand for CO₂ storage and cross-border transport
Today, the European Commission announced €2.9 billion in grants under the EU Innovation Fund to accelerate 61 net-zero technology projects, with multiple selections advancing carbon capture, CO₂ transport, and storage.
This round confirms that carbon management development is expanding beyond the North Sea, with new projects in Belgium, France, Italy, Greece, and Romania enabling inland carbon capture and storage (CCS) value chains, open‑access hubs, and maritime CO₂ transport corridors across southern and eastern Europe.
“With these awards, EU-funded capture projects alone now account for nearly half of the Net-Zero Industry Act’s target of 50 million tons of annual CO2 injection capacity by 2030, signaling clear demand,” said Toby Lockwood Technology and Markets Director for Carbon Capture at Clean Air Task Force. “To deliver on this momentum, and enable industrial decarbonisation in the EU, obligated entities must advance storage infrastructure and governments must help to enable cross-border transport.”
Key takeaways from selected carbon management projects:
- Cement and lime lead the industrial rollout: Large‑scale capture project selections include AirvaultGoCO₂ (France), ANTHEMIS (Belgium), DREAM (Italy), VAIA (France), reflecting the importance of carbon capture for decarbonising Europe’s cement and lime production.
- Inland industrial onshore storage advances: Romania’s Carbon Hub CPT01 will link Holcim’s Campulung cement plant (currently emitting around 1 Mt CO₂ per year) and a nearby lime production facility to a large-scale onshore geological CO₂ storage site.
- CO₂ transport‑as‑a‑service emerges: Spain’s COnet2 Sea establishes a dedicated large‑scale liquid CO₂ maritime transport service, enabling emitters to proceed before pipelines are in place and accelerating early abatement.
- Maritime capture enters the portfolio: Onboard CO₂ capture pilots in this selection bring shipping decarbonisation pathways into EU‑backed development alongside traditional point-source capture.
Why it matters
Inland CO₂ storage in Romania will help demonstrate that full-chain CCS is feasible away from the coast, while Spain’s transport‑as‑a‑service and Greece’s open‑access CO2 export terminal will help to build a southern CO₂ corridor that can lower decarbonisation costs for emitters in the region.
Carbon Management is needed in Europe to cut CO₂ from hard‑to‑abate industries like cement, chemicals, steel, and waste where emissions are process‑intrinsic or difficult to electrify, with safe, permanent geological storage regulated under established EU frameworks. Analyses show a substantial role for these technologies to reach net zero by 2050, with studies indicating Europe may need to capture on the order of 300–600 Mt CO₂ per year by mid‑century, making CCS a critical complement to renewables and energy efficiency.
Press Contact
Steve Reyes, Communications Manager, [email protected], +1 562-916-6463
About Clean Air Task Force
Clean Air Task Force (CATF) is a global nonprofit organisation working to safeguard against the worst impacts of climate change by catalysing the rapid development and deployment of low-carbon energy and other climate-protecting technologies. With more than 25 years of internationally recognized expertise on climate policy and a fierce commitment to exploring all potential solutions, CATF is a pragmatic, non-ideological advocacy group with the bold ideas needed to address climate change. CATF has offices in Boston, Washington D.C., and Brussels, with staff working virtually around the world. Visit catf.us and follow @cleanaircatf.
