EU funding gap puts CCS on the backburner

The omission of carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects from the first tranche of programmes to receive money from the EU's NER300 fund has raised concern that Europe is falling behind in the race to develop a viable CCS industry

The European Commission says it did not consider CCS projects for NER300 funding because member states had failed to provide sufficient financial guarantees for most of the projects, including three from the UK.

“In some cases there were funding gaps, while in others the projects were not sufficiently advanced,” it said.

The commission had made €275 million available for CCS projects in the first allocation of NER300 funds. It said the money will remain available for such projects, and pledged to proceed swiftly with the implementation of a call for new funding proposals.

However, the European CCS industry, which had called on the commission to hold off making a decision on whether to help finance CCS projects in the first round of funding, believes the withdrawal of support will further delay the meaningful demonstration of the technology in Europe.

The latest status report from the Global CCS Institute on the deployment of CCS technology reveals that Europe is lagging behind its major competitors. Of the eight large-scale integrated projects under construction around the world, all but one are located in North America – four in the US and three in Canada.

Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency has warned that high costs and a lack of incentivising policies are delaying deployment of CCS, and has called on governments to take action in 2013.