Heidelberg Materials has signed the EU Innovation Fund Grant Agreement for the company’s pioneering carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS) project, ANRAV.
The official signing ceremony of the EU Innovation Fund Grant Agreement took place in January 2023 as part of the European Commission’s ‘Financing Innovative Clean Tech’ conference.
The Innovation Fund will provide a total of around 190 million euros in financing to Heidelberg Materials and partner PetroCeltic to realise the project.
ANRAV in Bulgaria aims to be the first full-chain CCUS project in Eastern Europe, with a capture capacity of about 800,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year, starting from 2028.
The company reports that ANRAV aims to be the first full-chain CCUS project in Eastern Europe, eventually covering all steps from CO2 capture, transport and geological CO₂ storage to CO₂ reuse.
Commenting on the CCUS solution and its applications for Eastern Europe, Dr Dominik von Achten, Chairman of the Managing Board of Heidelberg Materials, said that the funding is crucial for enabling this sort of CCUS technology.
“Driving aspirational CCUS projects across Heidelberg Materials and the geographies we are represented in is an essential part of our climate strategy. And this large-scale solution in Eastern Europe is the next step in our ambitious and promising journey”, von Achten said.
“Co-financing and regulatory support are important enablers for scaling CCUS technology in our sector. The successful Grant Agreement is testament to the strength of the technology and our partnerships.”
ANRAV is planned to link carbon capture facilities at the Bulgarian cement plant of Heidelberg Materials’ subsidiary Devnya Cement through a pipeline system with offshore permanent storage, developed and to be operated by the partner PetroCeltic, under the Black Sea.
“Devnya will be the first carbon-neutral cement plant in the country and the region,” member of the managing board responsible for the Group area Northern and Eastern Europe-Central Asia, Ernest Jelito said.
“ANRAV will also enable other industrial players to join the carbon chain in the future and share storage capacity. In this way, we want to not only decarbonise our company in Bulgaria, but also provide opportunities for the whole region.”
To gain experience with a wide range of carbon capture technologies and advance them to maturity, Heidelberg Materials is pursuing a gradual investment approach based on research cooperation with other partners.
With the CCUS projects already launched, the company is estimated to save 10 million tonnes of CO₂ cumulatively by 2030.