Ørsted has announced plans to begin capturing and storing 400,000t of carbon a year from 2025 at two combined heat and power (CHP) plants in Denmark, if it gets financial support.
The company says the technology and logistics for handling and storing carbon is in place at its wood chip-fired Asnæs CHP plant at Kalundborg in western Zealand and at the Avedøre straw-fired CHP plant in the Greater Copenhagen area. Both are linked to the grid and the district heating system and have their own harbours, so they can act as hubs for the handling and shipping of carbon and green fuels, Ørsted said. It is also looking at shipping carbon produced by other players, including Kalundborg Refinery about the possibility of capturing carbon from the oil refinery and piping it to Asnæs, before sailing it away for storage.
The straw-fired boiler at Avedøre has been designated for capturing and delivering some of the carbon to the initial phases of the Power-to-X project ‘Green Fuels for Denmark’ where the ambition is to develop green fuels for the shipping and aviation industries. It too will function as a hub for other players with carbon emissions in the Greater Copenhagen area.
Ørsted also said that in future, it will be possible to meet the need for sustainable biomass for the company’s CHP plants from straw and wood chips primarily from Denmark and neighbouring countries in the Baltic region. So it has decided to reduce the use of imported wood chips from 2030. From the mid-2030s, Ørsted expects to primarily use Danish biomass as fuel for its boilers. Denmark expects to reduce the use of biomass in favour of heat electrification but Ørsted said some will remain to improve maintain grid reliability.