How collaboration with Aker Carbon Capture and Microsoft made a difference for Ørsted

The voluntary carbon market offers an opportunity for companies that have biogenic CO₂. Combining the strengths of Aker Carbon Capture and Microsoft, Ørsted saw the opportunity and succeeded. Explore the story behind one of the world’s largest carbon removal credit deals to date.

• Project in Denmark with Asnæs and Avedøre combined heat and power plants that will capture and store biogenic carbon commissioning already in 2025
• The two units will capture and store approx. 430,000 tonnes of biogenic CO₂ every year.
• Carbon removal, meaning capturing CO₂ with biogenic origin (biomass) and permanently store it, removes carbon from the natural carbon cycle and is often referred to as negative emissions.
• Asnæs Power Station will not only serve as hub for the capture and shipping of Ørsted’s own biogenic CO₂, but potentially also for shipping CO₂ produced by other emitters.
• Ørsted will as part of the project sell high-integrity carbon removal supporting Microsoft’s commitment to become carbon-negative by 2030.
• Microsoft has agreed to purchase 2.76 million tonnes of high-integrity, durable carbon removal over 11 years from the capture and storage of biogenic carbon from the Asnæs Power Station.

Recently, the Danish Energy Agency (DEA), awarded Ørsted a 20-year contract for its carbon capture and storage (CCS) project ‘Ørsted Kalundborg Hub’, installing 5 ACC delivered Just Catch capture plants capturing up to 430,000 tonnes of biogenic CO₂ for further transport to storage by Northern Lights JV. The project supports the Danish climate ambitions for 2025 and 2030. In addition, Microsoft will be committing to buying 2.76 million tonnes of high-integrity carbon removal credits – one of the largest carbon removal deals in the world. This does not only show the commercial value of negative emissions, but through our digital partnership the documentation of the full value chain from capture through transport to storage provides a step change in the voluntary carbon market when it comes to the integrity of the carbon removal credits. We met with Head of Sustainability, Hanne Rolén in Aker Carbon Capture and Industry Director EMEA, Energy & Sustainability at Microsoft – Joanna Mainguy, to talk about how the partnership between Ørsted, Microsoft and Aker Carbon Capture ended up being so successful.

– When we first joined together, Ørsted, Microsoft and us, back in 2021 we were eagerly trying to find out how to accelerate a BECCS (Bioenergy with CCS) project together, says Hanne Rolén when we catch up with her at the headquarters of Aker Carbon Capture outside Oslo. – We were a group of people around the table that all believed in partnership but had different experiences with how successful this could be commercially, she says with a smile. 2 years later – the project is underway as the winner of the Danish funding round and enabled by carbon removal credit sales to Microsoft. She explains that much of the partnership success has been to understand each other’s answer to “what does good look like”. – In a three-party partnership it has been all about combining the unique strengths and capabilities of each of the companies. Finding ways of leveraging the individual value of the project has been key to drive the project forward. This understanding has been very important as the road towards success was never easy, she explains.

Jumping off the stage from an active dialog at a Wind conference in Copenhagen, Joanna Mainguy from Microsoft provides some more colour to what Microsoft sets out to achieve. – We have committed to reducing not only the current emissions, but also all Microsoft’s historical emissions, she says. – That is why Microsoft is an early buyer and also building digital framework to connect the ecosystem and to provide the traceability and transparency needed, she explains. Because the carbon removal market is small and nascent, corporate removal buyers tend to rely on standards for carbon offsets, which are often focused on avoided emissions with no differentiation of the use of carbon removals in the carbon accounting. Thus, co-operation to achieve a consistent set of carbon removal definitions and standards as well independent oversight of carbon removal quality is important. At Microsoft, collaboration and co-innovation are two words that are very much at the core of the business. We see this project as an enabler of accelerating the creation of negative emissions. Both carbon reduction and removal are important, and that is why this partnership is so essential for Microsoft.

– There are many industrial and energy solutions with biogenic emissions out there, and we believe that we now have a formula that can enable realizing many of these projects, says Hanne Rolén. The Just Catch^TM modular carbon capture plant is key. – Our Just Catch^TM transform the way we can quickly and with considerably less risk drive forward decarbonization. And the 3. generation Just Catch^TM is a game changer not only for Denmark but also for the world market, she ends.