Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ACT (Accellerating CCS technologies as a new low-carbon energy vector)
Período documentado: 2017-05-01 hasta 2021-09-30
ACT was established in 2016 with 10 partners from 9 European countries as a response to the H2020 call in 2015 on low carbon technologies. This consortium joined forces with the aims to accelerate and mature CCUS technologies by making funds available for R&D and innovation projects and a solid basis for knowledge sharing in an open mind approach.
ACT has become a widely known program within the transnational CCUS R&D initiatives in Europe and beyond, extending the consortium with funding agencies from Europe, India, Canada and USA to a total of 16 funding agencies involved in ACT and the third ACT call in 2020.
Innovative and cost reducing activities for Carbon capture, transport, utilization and storage of CO2 have been in the scope for ACT. The thematic priority CCUS is essential to the climate-neutrality goal of Europe, which has been underlined in a number of policy documents issued by EC and others the recent years.
The ACT calls have asked for RD&I projects that can lead to deployment of CCUS and comply with the SET Plan implementation plan for CCUS and the Mission Innovation research priorities for CCUS. Project proposals with high industrial relevance and industrial involvement have been prioritised.
More detailed information from ACT-activities, events and ACT-funded projects can be found on the ACT-website (www.act-ccs.eu).
ACT has become a widely known program within the transnational CCUS R&D initiatives in Europe and beyond, extending the consortium with funding agencies from Europe, India, Canada and USA to a total of 16 funding agencies involved in ACT and the third ACT call in 2020.
Innovative and cost reducing activities for Carbon capture, transport, utilization and storage of CO2 have been in the scope for ACT. The thematic priority CCUS is essential to the climate-neutrality goal of Europe, which has been underlined in a number of policy documents issued by EC and others the recent years.
The ACT calls have asked for RD&I projects that can lead to deployment of CCUS and comply with the SET Plan implementation plan for CCUS and the Mission Innovation research priorities for CCUS. Project proposals with high industrial relevance and industrial involvement have been prioritised.
More detailed information from ACT-activities, events and ACT-funded projects can be found on the ACT-website (www.act-ccs.eu).
ACT has carried out three successful calls for transnational projects, the first (in 2016) was cofunded by EC and the two last (in 2018 and 2020) were based on national funding only.
From the 2016 call ACT contracted eight projects provided grants at total of ~37.8 M€ (total budget close to 50M€, with ~12M€ as in-kind and cash contribution from project-/industry partners). All ACT countries were involved in one or more ACT1-projects. The ACT1 projects completed Autumn 2020. Several of these projects have delivered essential results for large scale CCUS operations such as Longship, Porthos and the Scottish CCUS cluster.
From the second call (2018) 12 projects were funded with ~32M€ from ACT. The total budget for these projects is ~44M€. The projects were kicked off autumn 2019 and they will run until autumn 2022/winter 2023. Important results are being published and made available to the CCUS community. Several of the project have good industry involvement with cash or in-kind contributions. Projects work closely together for optimising specific challenges e.g. monitoring issues related to CO2-storage.
The ACT3 call (2020) released funding for 13 projects with a total budget of 48M€ of which ~32M€ is funded by the ACT partners. Approx. 13M€ is in-kind and 3M€ in-cash private/industry contribution. All projects (except two) were kicked off before end of 2021, the remaining will be kicked off early 2022. All projects will run for 3 years.
ACT has had close interaction with several European CCS RD&D activities and beyond, to align and strengthen the Europe’s main research program owners and managers ties to related CCS activities.
Organisations/institutions such as EERA JP CCS, CCS-Association, ZEP, Club-CO2, CO2GeoNet have been targeted stakeholders and discussion groups. ACT members have presented ACT results and achievements to the SET Plan Implementation working group for Action 9 (CCUS) on a yearly basis. Moreover, workshops together with pilot- and demonstration projects, making ACT funded research relevant for such sites and activities, have been carried out.
Moreover, workshops where all ACT-partners and ACT funded projects were present together with other stakeholders such as EC representatives and industry. But also, the ACT funded projects have been encouraged to arrange workshops and meetings with the aim to present and align results with industry requirements for R&D to support their CCUS deployment.
From the 2016 call ACT contracted eight projects provided grants at total of ~37.8 M€ (total budget close to 50M€, with ~12M€ as in-kind and cash contribution from project-/industry partners). All ACT countries were involved in one or more ACT1-projects. The ACT1 projects completed Autumn 2020. Several of these projects have delivered essential results for large scale CCUS operations such as Longship, Porthos and the Scottish CCUS cluster.
From the second call (2018) 12 projects were funded with ~32M€ from ACT. The total budget for these projects is ~44M€. The projects were kicked off autumn 2019 and they will run until autumn 2022/winter 2023. Important results are being published and made available to the CCUS community. Several of the project have good industry involvement with cash or in-kind contributions. Projects work closely together for optimising specific challenges e.g. monitoring issues related to CO2-storage.
The ACT3 call (2020) released funding for 13 projects with a total budget of 48M€ of which ~32M€ is funded by the ACT partners. Approx. 13M€ is in-kind and 3M€ in-cash private/industry contribution. All projects (except two) were kicked off before end of 2021, the remaining will be kicked off early 2022. All projects will run for 3 years.
ACT has had close interaction with several European CCS RD&D activities and beyond, to align and strengthen the Europe’s main research program owners and managers ties to related CCS activities.
Organisations/institutions such as EERA JP CCS, CCS-Association, ZEP, Club-CO2, CO2GeoNet have been targeted stakeholders and discussion groups. ACT members have presented ACT results and achievements to the SET Plan Implementation working group for Action 9 (CCUS) on a yearly basis. Moreover, workshops together with pilot- and demonstration projects, making ACT funded research relevant for such sites and activities, have been carried out.
Moreover, workshops where all ACT-partners and ACT funded projects were present together with other stakeholders such as EC representatives and industry. But also, the ACT funded projects have been encouraged to arrange workshops and meetings with the aim to present and align results with industry requirements for R&D to support their CCUS deployment.
ACT is a fit-for-purpose, partner-driven, flexible funding scheme that serves our ambition: to make CCUS a commercially viable climate mitigation technology. Results relevant to the industry and policy makers have been and are still being provided from the ACT projects. Most importantly is that the ACT-projects have provided results of significant value:
• Paved the way for large scale CCUS deployment, e.g. provided results of relevance to development of large scale CCUS projects like Longship, Porthos, Acorn/Sapling etc.
• Delivered results aligned with the European SET Plan CCU-CCS Implementation Working Group and the Mission Innovation Priority Research Directions .
• Each ACT project is more than the sum of national efforts. Large impact is achieved when expert groups from several countries join forces in international ACT projects.
• Collaboration between partners (in Europe and across the Atlantic) who without ACT would not have found each other (not at all or not that easily).
ACT has succeeded in getting impactful projects funded in all ACT participating countries (though not all countries in all calls), and many of them have provided a considerable number of publications – not only for the scientific community but reached out to a broader community.
Five Knowledge Sharing Workshops have been held under ACT and the sixth is planned in June 2022. These events have been organized with the aim to ensure fruitful knowledge sharing and increase collaboration between all the ACT funded projects and other CCUS initiatives. ACT has worked towards improving procedures and re-acting to challenges; updating procedures according to improvements needed, be it the ACT-process or the scope of the initiative. The most important actors in ACT workshops were the funded projects: the collaboration between ACT and funded projects, the opportunity of ACT projects to learn more about other initiatives, but also the collaboration between one ACT funded project and other ACT funded projects. ACT tried to intensify sharing knowledge between projects and within the workshop dedicated time and organised sessions designed for asking questions and finding possible common directions.
The following funding agencies: RCN, PtJ, UEFISCDI, RVO, BEIS, Gassnova, CERTH, TUBITAK, AEI and GSRT, have all been active in the respective periodes making them eligible for Unit costs for additional activities (workshops, stakeholder engagement, additional calls etc.)
Several of the ACT-funded project have tasks related to socio-economic aspects of CCUS. During the ACT1 operation period, the researchers working on the socio-economic issues related to CCUS also formed a group to discuss their progress and how their results were communicated to the public and stakeholders in general.
The ACT group has paid attention to the gender balance and addressed this as a principal issue also in the calls for proposals. There are 18 female out of 33 project leaders, and when including the WP-leaders there even more females. In the ACT management group, there are 4 females out of 7, and among the full ACT-consortium member list we have 24 females out of a total of 42 representatives from the funding agencies. By paining seriously attention to this issue the last expert panel was established with close to 50:50 female:male.
The ACT consortium has funded several CCUS projects which are in line with the SET Plan Implementation plan targets, and with the 30 Mission Innovation research priorities to guide future CCUS RD&D (re: ACT Final report).
Ragnhild Rønneberg 13.01.2022 (rev. 17.01.2023 added info on Unit Costs)
• Paved the way for large scale CCUS deployment, e.g. provided results of relevance to development of large scale CCUS projects like Longship, Porthos, Acorn/Sapling etc.
• Delivered results aligned with the European SET Plan CCU-CCS Implementation Working Group and the Mission Innovation Priority Research Directions .
• Each ACT project is more than the sum of national efforts. Large impact is achieved when expert groups from several countries join forces in international ACT projects.
• Collaboration between partners (in Europe and across the Atlantic) who without ACT would not have found each other (not at all or not that easily).
ACT has succeeded in getting impactful projects funded in all ACT participating countries (though not all countries in all calls), and many of them have provided a considerable number of publications – not only for the scientific community but reached out to a broader community.
Five Knowledge Sharing Workshops have been held under ACT and the sixth is planned in June 2022. These events have been organized with the aim to ensure fruitful knowledge sharing and increase collaboration between all the ACT funded projects and other CCUS initiatives. ACT has worked towards improving procedures and re-acting to challenges; updating procedures according to improvements needed, be it the ACT-process or the scope of the initiative. The most important actors in ACT workshops were the funded projects: the collaboration between ACT and funded projects, the opportunity of ACT projects to learn more about other initiatives, but also the collaboration between one ACT funded project and other ACT funded projects. ACT tried to intensify sharing knowledge between projects and within the workshop dedicated time and organised sessions designed for asking questions and finding possible common directions.
The following funding agencies: RCN, PtJ, UEFISCDI, RVO, BEIS, Gassnova, CERTH, TUBITAK, AEI and GSRT, have all been active in the respective periodes making them eligible for Unit costs for additional activities (workshops, stakeholder engagement, additional calls etc.)
Several of the ACT-funded project have tasks related to socio-economic aspects of CCUS. During the ACT1 operation period, the researchers working on the socio-economic issues related to CCUS also formed a group to discuss their progress and how their results were communicated to the public and stakeholders in general.
The ACT group has paid attention to the gender balance and addressed this as a principal issue also in the calls for proposals. There are 18 female out of 33 project leaders, and when including the WP-leaders there even more females. In the ACT management group, there are 4 females out of 7, and among the full ACT-consortium member list we have 24 females out of a total of 42 representatives from the funding agencies. By paining seriously attention to this issue the last expert panel was established with close to 50:50 female:male.
The ACT consortium has funded several CCUS projects which are in line with the SET Plan Implementation plan targets, and with the 30 Mission Innovation research priorities to guide future CCUS RD&D (re: ACT Final report).
Ragnhild Rønneberg 13.01.2022 (rev. 17.01.2023 added info on Unit Costs)