Europe: The EU Innovation Fund has selected four of Heidelberg Materials’ carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) projects for grant agreement preparation under its Net-Zero Technologies Call. Selected projects were assessed in terms of their potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, their degree of innovation, project maturity, replicability and cost efficiency. The selected projects are Anthemis in Belgium, AirvaultGOCO₂ in France, DREAM in Italy, and HuCCSar in Poland.

The Anthemis project in Belgium will equip the Antoing clinker plant with an oxyfuel carbon capture unit capable of capturing over 95% of the plant’s emissions, or more than 800,000t/yr of CO₂. The company also plans to transport and permanently store the captured CO₂. The AirvaultGOCO₂ project in France will capture nearly 1Mt/yr of CO₂ at the Airvault cement plant and transport it to permanent storage under the North Sea. The DREAM project in Italy will capture around 1Mt/yr of CO₂ from the Rezzato-Mazzano cement plant for storage in the Ravenna CCS hub beneath the Adriatic Sea. The HuCCSar project in Poland will develop the country’s first onshore CCS value chain and validate local CO₂ storage potential.

Chair of the managing board Dr Dominik von Achten said “This is a great day for the company and for the decarbonisation of the cement industry in Europe. The support from the Innovation Fund is a strong vote of confidence for our approach and our projects. Today’s milestone confirms that we are on the right track with the next chapters of our journey – building on the successful launch of our Brevik CCS project in Norway and the recent Final Investment Decision for Padeswood CCS in the UK.”

Member of the managing board Jon Morrish said “The selected projects in four of our European core markets are important drivers of innovation. We call on the four member states – France, Belgium, Italy and Poland – to work closely with us to enable the right framework conditions in order for us to reach Final Investment Decision for these projects. This will allow our customers to access carbon captured near-zero products under our evoZero brand at much larger scale.”