With its vast amounts of hydro energy, many would like Norway to become Europe’s “green battery”, supplying neighbours with steady power when there is little wind or sun. An extreme heat wave and dry weather in the first half of 2018 showed the limitations of this vision. The Norwegian government itself is focusing on natural gas exports, which it sees as a climate-friendly alternative to oil and coal for a continent with ever-stricter climate targets. Now, the Scandinavian country is developing plans to capture and store huge amounts of CO₂ in empty gas fields under the seabed – and wants financial support from the EU to help showcase the idea’s viability. But scepticism over carbon capture and storage (CCS) means support is far from certain, according to Cleanenergywire.org.

“To be a battery for all of Europe? That will never be possible. We are huge on energy, but not that huge,” Terje Søviknes chuckles. When the Minister of Petroleum and Energy sits down with a group of journalists from Germany in his Oslo office in June 2018, drier-than-normal weather and unseasonably high temperatures over many weeks have depleted Norway’s hydro power. Over the following months, record low stocks in reservoirs will lift power prices to new multi-year highs and trigger electricity imports from neighbouring countries.

While supply security for the coming winter is not at risk in the country that produces about 96 percent of its electricity from hydro energy, according to the water resources and energy directorate (NVE), its role as a steady electricity supplier for Denmark, Sweden and others might be.

The journalists’ meeting with the minister is an early stop on a two-day government-organised press tour entitled “Norway´s contribution to the German energy shift”. For years, the European Union has focussed on the narrative of the Scandinavian country as “Europe’s green battery”. The idea is that steady hydro power can be used to supply neighbouring countries at times of low wind yield.

What’s more, pumped storage facilities could take in excess renewable electricity on windy days in northern Europe, store the energy over various time horizons and send it back through interconnectors like Nordlink, the German-Norwegian power link currently under construction in the North Sea. German politicians have hailed the project as the key to making the German Energiewende a European project.

Germany’s energy transition – decarbonising the economy without relying on nuclear power – began as a isolated expedition of rapid renewables expansion more than 20 years ago. Today, the current European Commission has made completing the Energy Union one of its priorities. Its aim is to facilitate “the transition to a low-carbon, secure, and competitive economy”. While much remains to be done, joint energy and climate goals already set the framework for a future, interconnected, internal energy market in which countries step in to help each other out when supply falls short.

In his meeting with the journalists, Norway’s energy minister dampens expectations of direct electricity flows: “It’s important that we can offer flexibility through the interconnectors, but of course there are also limitations,” says Søviknes. For him, Norway’s large reservoirs of natural gas are “more important” when it comes to balancing the power systems and securing Europe’s energy supply during its transition to a low-carbon economy. Søvikne’s arguments are in line with those of the German gas industry, which presents the fossil fuel as a clean alternative to oil and coal in power production, heating and transport.

Reversing the flow

Norway is the third largest gas exporter in the world and sells nearly all of it on the European market. In 2017, four decades after Norwegian gas exports began, the country’s gas grid operators transported a record 117.4 billion standard cubic metres to continental Europe and the UK. Germany receives up to a third of its gas imports from Norway.

As the world starts switching from fossil fuels to renewables, Norway is setting its sights on a different business model. The country has exported vast amounts of carbon in the form of crude oil and natural gas since the 1970s, helping it build up billions of euros in its sovereign wealth fund – the Government Pension Fund Global. Now it’s offering to take back the carbon – at a price.

The enormity of Norway’s gas operation is apparent at Kårstø. Europe’s biggest processing plant is a labyrinth of pipes, flare towers and tanks on the North Sea coast, just 40 kilometres north of the country’s third largest city Stavanger. It is connected to Norway’s extensive 8,800-kilometre network of subsea pipelines, which links about 50 active offshore gas fields and onshore terminals directly to countries in continental Europe and the UK.

Here, Tor Martin Anfinnsen lays out Norway’s vision for the future. Anfinnsen is Senior Vice President Marketing and Supply at Equinor, the largely state-owned oil and gas company formerly known as Statoil. In his view, the solution to Europe’s difficulties in reaching climate targets is capturing the CO₂ that is emitted when burning or using natural gas, sending it to Norway and storing it 1,000-2,000 metres below the North Sea bed – where the gas came from in the first place. Ideally, large parts of today’s infrastructure could be used after some refitting to transport the CO₂.

“The storage possibilities off our coasts are practically unlimited,” Anfinnsen tells one journalist. “We could store all European emissions for hundreds of years.”

Scientists increasingly see carbon capture and storage (CCS) as vital to keeping global warming well below two degrees Celsius – but it is expensive, as Norway experienced in 2013. After escalating costs and a change of political leadership, the Norwegian government dropped first plans for the development of full-scale carbon dioxide capture, putting an end to the project former Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg had called Norway’s “Moon Landing”.

Now, the Norwegian government is giving CCS another go. It wants to set up a full-scale demonstration project to show the technology’s feasibility on an industrial scale from capture, via transport to storage – called “Northern Lights”. Whereas the last project focussed on capturing carbon emissions from fossil power plants – which would in theory make it possible to keep these running even in times of ever-stricter climate targets – oil and energy minister Søviknes explains his adapted approach:

“Now, we’re focussing on the industrial sector, because here we have no other option,” he says. “There are unavoidable CO₂ emissions as part of the industrial processes.” Søviknes hopes that this shift makes investments by other European countries more likely.

“Investment and operational costs during the test period may be between 1 and 1.5 billion euros, and of course that’s a lot of money for just one country. We are seeking cooperation especially when it comes to the European Union.” The Norwegian government has emphasised the importance of including CCS in the EU’s relevant support mechanisms, for example the Innovation fund.

“Yes, projects in Norway will be eligible as Norway is a member of the European Economic Area and therefore part of the EU Emissions Trading System,” Anna-Kaisa Itkonen, spokesperson of the European Commission told the Clean Energy Wire.

The European Union acknowledges the role of CCS in reaching the EU’s long-term emissions-reduction goals. The Innovation Fund is currently being developed to be set up as part of the post-2021 reform of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) to help the EU reach its 2030 climate goals. The fund will support low-carbon innovation in energy intensive industry, carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) technologies, innovative renewable energy and energy storage technologies, and demonstration projects on the environmentally safe capture and geological storage of CO₂ – CCS. According to Itkonen, the first call for projects should take place in 2020.

Norway’s goal is to have an investment decision for the demonstration project in 2020 or 2021 and to start operations in 2024. The Norwegian government has not yet approached the European Union with a request for financial support for the CCS project, Itkonen told the Clean Energy Wire.