Swedish utility Vattenfall and Norway’s Aker Carbon Capture have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to accelerate the evaluation of future carbon capture plants in Sweden and Northern Europe, they said on Oct. 22.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has long been viewed as a way to reduce CO2 emissions but there are few commercial projects in existence, partly due to the cost. However, Norway in September announced it would finance two-thirds of a large-scale project dubbed “Longship.”

The International Energy Agency (IEA) said in September carbon capture technology was key to achieving global climate goals.

The agreement, which would focus on commercial bio-CCS plants, would help deliver on Vattenfall’s ambitions to achieve negative emissions.

Capturing the CO2 released by sustainably grown biomass fuel can be counted as carbon-negative, as less CO2 is released into the atmosphere than is removed by the crops during their growth.

The MoU is non-exclusive and covers services related to advancing initiatives for CCS at Vattenfall and has a two-year timeline, the companies said.

Vattenfall first started testing CCS technologies between 2008 and 2014.

“However, CCS has taken many steps forward since then, leading to several projects moving forward both on the capture and on the storage side,” it added, highlighting Norway’s Longship project led by oil and gas majors Equinor, Total and Shell.

“As we prepare to deliver the capture plant for Longship, the Norwegian full-scale demonstration project, we see a sharp increase in companies across sectors that want to explore and realize carbon capture plants in the future,” Valborg Lundegaard, CEO of Aker Carbon Capture, said in a statement.