Investigation of carbon capture at Kvitebjørn Varme AS’ waste incineration plant at Skattøra in Tromsø

Background and purpose of the project?
Kvitebjørn Varme AS (KVAS) in Tromsø annually recovers approx. 60,000 tonnes of municipal waste and commercial waste in 2 incineration lines. The energy recovery is used to supply district heating on Tromsøya and reduces the proportion of waste exported to southern Sweden for final treatment. There is increasing demand in the district heating network and KVAS has therefore received permission to establish a third combustion line of 15 MW at Skattøra. Establishment of this line increases the final processing capacity of waste to 110,000 tonnes per year.

The incineration plant is today the 3rd largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Tromsø. With expanded capacity, waste treatment will become the second largest source of emissions, and by far the largest point emission in Tromsø. Carbon capture linked to the final treatment of waste will thus be crucial to realizing Tromsø municipality’s ambitions to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030.
In Norway, a total of more waste is incinerated in small or medium-sized plants than in large plants. However, there is relatively little experience with carbon capture from small or medium-sized incineration plants. This creates extra great uncertainty around the price picture for CCS for the most common facilities in Norway and in the rest of Europe. There is also a very low number of technology suppliers who deliver turnkey contracts for carbon capture. This creates additional risks, which come on top of unpredictable electricity prices, technology risks and an uncertain political framework for CO₂ pricing. A high degree of utilization of waste heat from the capture process and the possibility of receiving offers for turnkey contracts for carbon capture facilities are two key factors that can contribute to greater financial predictability in carbon capture projects.

What was the goal of the project?
The most important ambition of the concept study was to help find out what is needed to mature several technology suppliers to be able to provide a turnkey contract for carbon capture facilities to KVAS (sub-goal 1). This work was linked to a technology screening in the market, dialogue with relevant suppliers, and assessment of technical and physical conditions for KVAS that affect the choice of technology (sub-goal 2).

Sub-goal 3 was to assess overall what can be done with CO₂ after capture. This included an overall screening of the possibilities for storing CO₂ by e.g. to be included in a northern Norwegian cluster in the long term and/or whether there may be any areas of use for CO₂ until the time that infrastructure for CO₂ storage is established in the north.

The final sub-goal was to investigate what a suitable ownership structure linked to the carbon capture plant might look like for KVAS (sub-goal 4).

Sub-objectives 1 and 2 have the largest scope in this study.