ELEGANCY

Background and project purpose?
The background for the project, briefly told, was that CCS deployment had been slower than desirable. The main hypothesis behind the project was that to consider CCS in conjunction with hydrogen production by natural gas reforming, one could achieve two things at once, first, to decarbonize sectors that are otherwise difficult to decarbonized, such as various industrial processes and transport, and second to give economic incentives to CCS since there is already a market and existing assets for hydrogen.

What was the project objective?
The main objective was to help fast-tracking the decarbonization of Europe’s energy system by exploiting the synergies between two key low-carbon technologies: CCS and hydrogen.

What has the project done in terms of activities?

The work was divided into five work packages:
– Hydrogen supply and hydrogen-CO₂ separation
– CO₂ transport, injection and storage
– Business case development for H2-CCS integrated chains
– Hydrogen-CCS chain tool and evaluation methodologies for integrated chains
– Case studies in the Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and the UK, taking local conditions and interests into account.

What has the project achieved ? Did the project achieve its objective?
The last steering committee meeting (9 December) confirmed that the project participants are very satisfied with the results. A detailed final report has been sent to ACT.

The following are examples of main results:
• Research results and findings are publicly available; 55 deliverables are published on the project website, and more are upcoming as articles are accepted for publication in journals.

• Active dissemination to stakeholders and decision-makers:
o Final event with a large audience: Webinar series on CCS and H2, June 2020.
o A luncheon discussion in the EU Parliament, January 2020.
o A one-day conference in Brussels, November 2018.
o ELEGANCY representatives disseminated at the Romanian International Gas Conference, CSLF Technical Group Meeting, GHGT-14 and numerous other events.

• Case studies carried out in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and the UK on the deployment of CCS with H2, highlighting that H2 from both natural gas and renewable sources are needed and that the countries are interconnected.
O Established the H-vision consortium committed to decarbonizing the Rotterdam cluster industry.
O Identified the key opportunities and constraints for the design of a UK H2 and CCS infrastructure, including potential H2 and CO₂ storage capacities, and presented UK business case solutions.
O Identified the role of H2 and CCS for reaching the Swiss climate targets. Revealed the need for a two-pronged approach for CCS in Switzerland due to the characteristics of Swiss geology that are challenging for the deployment of CCS.
O Performed a multi-disciplinary evaluation of decarbonization strategies for the German gas infrastructure using public acceptance, legal and macro-economic insights.
O Showed that large-scale H2 production in Norway can enable economies of scale in the development of a Norwegian CCS infrastructur

• Development and use of an open-source whole-chain design tool.

• Issue and industrial application of a business case development toolbox.

• The Swiss Mt Terri experiment on CO₂ migration within a caprock fault was successfully completed.

• The technical feasibility of sharp H2-CO₂ separation using only one process proven in simulations and the lab.

• New data and models describing thermophysical properties of CO₂ stemming from H2 production, pipe and well dynamics and flow in the reservoir.

Future plans?

There are many promising results that should be taken further. In particular, a project initiative is under development for the third ACT call.