EFTA greenlights state aid for carbon capture and storage

摘要

EU Energy Commissioner Andris Pie-balgs welcomed, on 23 July, a decision by the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) Surveillance Authority (ESA) not to raise objections to a Norwegian project for large-scale testing of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies at Mongstadt. Norway had notified ESA in July 2007 that it would invest in the company set to build and own the CCS Test Center Mongstad (TCM) in western Norway. ESA, in a decision made public on 16 July, had raised no objections to the Norwegian state providing up to 80% of the capital of the TCM holding. According to Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, the decision is a major step towards developing and testing new CO_2 capture technology in Europe. The TCM should be operational for full-scale carbon capture and storage from 2014. Norway's Ministry of Petroleum and Energy signed an agreement in 2006 with Statoil to establish the TCM project together with a combined heat and power plant. Piebalgs underlined that the goal of the TCM project was to test and demonstrate different concepts and technologies capable of reducing costs and risks.