Northern Lights, the world’s first cross-border CO2 transport and storage facility, has officially been completed and is ready to receive and store CO2.
The project was developed by a Joint Venture (JV) of TotalEnergies, Equinor, and Shell. The JV was first formed in 2017, with construction commencing in 2021. The facility is located in the Norwegian North Sea, in Oygarden.
The facility is part of Longship, the Norwegian Government’s full-scale carbon capture and storage project.
When completed, it will be the first ever cross-border, open-source CO2 transport and storage infrastructure network, providing companies across Europe the ability to store their CO2 permanently underground.
Longship will capture CO2 from industrial sources in the Oslo-fjord region and ship the liquid from the industrial capture sites to an onshore terminal on the western coast of Norway. Subsequently, the liquified CO2 will be transported through a pipeline to an offshore subsea location in the North Sea where it will be permanently stored.
The Northern Lights facility is responsible for the transport and storage components of the project.
The JV partnered with Microsoft in 2020 to explore a technology collaboration to integrate the US company's digital expertise into the project, the use of CO2 transport and storage facility as part of Microsoft’s portfolio of carbon capture, transportation, and storage projects, and establish advocacy of policies that help accelerate the contribution CCS can make to meeting Europe’s climate goals.
"Northern Lights will serve as the storage partner for several Microsoft carbon removal offtakes in Europe behind pioneering developers like Ørsted," Microsoft's senior director, energy markets, Brian Marrs, said on LinkedIn.
