Norway’s Aker Carbon Capture has been awarded a feasibility study by green energy company TES to explore the implementation of a carbon capture plant at a waste-to-energy facility in Germany, according to an Oct. 30 news release.

The study will assess the CO2 capture, conditioning, liquefaction and temporary storage facility. The captured CO2 will be the source material to produce electric natural gas (e-NG). The e-NG is created by combining green hydrogen with recycled CO2 to create "synthetic methane" or "green gas," according to the press release.

According to the release, the planned capture capacity will be 400,000 tonnes of CO2 per year and transported by rail to TES facilities in northern Germany to produce e-NG.

Aker said the e-NG is easier to transport and store and is chemically identical to natural gas. By 2030, TES plans to produce approximately 15 terawatts per hour of e-NG annually, equivalent to 0.4 megatons of green hydrogen.

“By using recycled CO2 to deliver green energy to users, further CO2 emissions are being avoided, contributing to Germany's goal to achieve Net-Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045,” said Jon Knudsen, Aker’s chief commercial officer. “We aim to deliver our modular Just Catch 400 unit, which has gained high market interest since its recent launch."

This is Aker’s third awarded study in Germany —Europe’s largest CO2 emitter. The release added that Germany aims to cut its CO2 emissions by 65% by 2030 and plans to be carbon neutral by 2045.

“This evaluation of an industrial scale project will allow us to select the best of different available capture technologies based on real-life performance going forward in massive scale up,” said Jens Schmidt, CTO at TES.

Currently, Aker is delivering its Just Catch unit with a capacity of 100,00 tonnes of CO2 per year following news of the company’s delivery of five Just Catch units— with a capture capacity of 500,000 tonnes of CO2 per year—to Ørsted’s bioenergy facilities in Denmark, according to the release.