Northern Lights has signed an agreement with the Swedish energy company Öresundskraft Kraft & Värme to transport and permanently store up to 200,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO₂) per year from the Filbornaverket waste-to-energy plant in Helsingborg.
Operations are scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter of 2029, subject to the fulfillment of requirements established between the parties. The agreement makes Öresundskraft Northern Lights’ second Swedish customer, after Stockholm Exergi, and expands the number of industrial CCS infrastructure customers to seven across four countries.
The CO₂ will be captured and liquefied at Filbornaverket, which processes domestic and industrial waste and produces electricity and heat for district heating networks. Subsequently, the carbon dioxide will be transported by road to the port of Halland, in Halmstad, where it will be transferred to the Northern Lights maritime system.
Vessels will transport the liquid CO₂ to the Øygarden receiving terminal in Norway, from where it will continue to offshore facilities for injection and permanent storage in a reservoir located approximately 2,600 meters beneath the North Sea seabed.
A Shared Network for Various Emitters
The agreement introduces a shared logistics model that leverages available capacity in Northern Lights’ maritime transport portfolio.
This configuration allows industrial facilities located in different countries to connect to the same reception, transport, and injection infrastructure, preventing each emitter from having to individually develop the entire chain needed to manage its CO₂.
Shared infrastructure becomes more important as the number of customers increases. In this model, maritime transport functions as a connecting element between dispersed emitters and a common geological storage system. For industrial projects, this makes access to storage a matter of logistics and infrastructure, in addition to capture.
Northern Lights is a joint venture owned by Equinor, TotalEnergies, and Shell. The company began injecting liquid CO₂ for permanent storage in 2025 and is expanding its annual capacity from 1.5 million to over 5 million tonnes.
The addition of new customers allows this infrastructure to be used as a platform to receive volumes from different sectors and locations.
From Waste to Geological Storage
Öresundskraft aims to capture both biogenic and fossil CO₂ emissions at Filbornaverket. This combination is relevant because waste-to-energy plants can generate emissions from different sources and require systems capable of managing CO₂ once separated from the industrial process.
In this case, the chain does not end at the capture plant. The CO₂ must be conditioned and liquefied, transported by road to Halmstad, loaded onto a ship, and transported to Norway before reaching the reception point.
From Øygarden, the Northern Lights system will guide it to offshore facilities for injection into the subsea.
The sequence makes the project a multinational logistical system in which capture represents only the first stage. The viability of storage also depends on the CO₂ maintaining the required conditions during its handling, transport, reception, and injection.
CCS Becomes Network Infrastructure
With Öresundskraft, Northern Lights adds its second Swedish customer and reaches seven industrial customers distributed across four countries. This expansion shows how CCS can evolve from individual projects linked to a single emission source towards a common infrastructure capable of integrating different CO₂ streams.
This architecture can be especially relevant for industries whose facilities do not have direct access to suitable geological formations for storage.
Maritime transport allows these emitters to connect with a storage point hundreds of kilometers away, transforming geographical distance into a manageable logistical variable.
The development also modifies the nature of the asset. A reception terminal, a specialized fleet, and a storage system can serve multiple emitters, similar to other shared energy infrastructures.
The growth in the number of customers can, therefore, expand the use of an infrastructure that initially required large-scale investments.
SOURCE and PHOTO: https://www.oedigital.com/
