The emergence of a Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) value chain in the European Union and Associated Countries is currently being hampered by a lack of a clear pathway to mature CO₂ storage sites. In the Net Zero Industry Act regulation (NZIA), the EU has defined the objective that at least 50 million tonnes of CO₂ per year can be stored geologically by 2030, in storage sites located in the territory of the European Union, its exclusive economic zones or on its continental shelf within the meaning of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and which are not combined with enhanced hydrocarbon recovery. There is a need to understand if current storage development is enough to meet EU storage requirements defined in the NZIA.

Project results are expected to contribute to the following expected outcome:

• Enhanced availability of CO₂ storage sites and transparency about potential CO₂ storage and injection capacity and infrastructure, including in relation to geomechanical characteristics and pressure interference from neighbouring storage projects, which can support market operators to plan their investments and enable the implementation of large-scale storage hubs connected to shared CO2 transport infrastructure.

The project is expected to produce a digital atlas of ‘investable’ underground storage space for CO₂ in the EU and Associated Countries. The European CO₂ Storage Atlas^[1] currently under revision and being updated by the GSEU project^[2], including estimated capacity and storage readiness level, presents a good basis, but also shows that data gaps need to be closed, and access to the necessary data during project implementation will be crucial. The Commission's Energy and Industry Geography Lab^[3] can also be used. Proposals are expected to include the following:

• Identify and assess with a harmonised methodology, injection and storage capacities for current and planned projects and compare with storage requirements;
• Identify key regions for future pre-licence appraisal (high estimated capacity, proximity to emitters, transport corridors), and develop plans for pre-licence appraisal, per region;
• Each potential storage site must be labelled according to its ‘storage readiness level’ in line with the storage readiness levels included in the GSEU atlas, and matched with public data to speed up the work to identify and assess the storage capacities and what is needed to mature understanding of the site. Furthermore, the identified potential storage sites should be compared and ranked by applying a common ranking scheme developed based on currently used ranking schemes and including a techno-economic assessment;
• Environmental and security aspects must be taken into account.

The proposal is expected to explicitly demonstrate the capacity to have access to the necessary data during the implementation of the grant. Cooperation with relevant national and/or regional actors in the management of the subsurface, such as geological surveys or competent authorities, will be key.

[1] European CO2 storage database - European Commission (europa.eu)

[2] GSEU (geologicalservice.eu)

[3] Energy and Industry Geography Lab - European Commission (europa.eu)