EU-wide Advantages and Opportunities for the call “Effects of CO2-stream impurities on CO2 transport and storage” (HORIZON-CL5-2025-02-D3-25)

1. Single Market Access – 450 + million consumers, emitters and storage users

• A project developed under this call can validate impurity limits that apply uniformly across 27 Member States, enabling equipment suppliers, pipeline/shipping operators and storage licensees to commercialise one pan-European product specification rather than adapting to 27 national ones.

• Common impurity envelopes de-risk cross-border CO₂ flows (e.g. capture in Germany → storage in Denmark or Norway, capture in Poland → storage in the Baltic), accelerating the emergence of a truly EU-wide CO₂ management market forecast at >200 Mt/yr by 2030.

• Harmonised specifications simplify access to the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) crediting for permanent storage, creating a direct monetisation pathway for industries located anywhere in the single market.

2. Cross-Border Collaboration & Knowledge Exchange

• Horizon projects must include at least three independent entities from three different countries; this call explicitly seeks balance between transport and storage expertise, naturally encouraging consortia that unite pipeline operators (e.g. NL, ES), port authorities (BE, PT), shipbuilders (HR), reservoir owners (DK, EL) and materials science labs (FR, DE, IT).

• ECCSEL ERIC offers >40 world-class test sites spread across five nations; use of this RI catalyses distributed experimentation while keeping data inside a FAIR-compliant EU repository.

• Joint work with US projects is endorsed by the topic, giving European participants early insight into North-American CO₂ hubs (Houston, Gulf Coast) while maintaining IP ownership under EU grant rules.

3. EU Policy Alignment – Green Deal, Industrial Carbon Management, Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA)

• The European Green Deal and NZIA set a target of 50 Mt CO₂/yr injection capacity by 2030. Reliable impurity limits are a prerequisite; projects can supply science-based input for the forthcoming Implementing Act on CO₂ Storage.

• Results feed directly into the Carbon Capture, Utilisation & Storage (CCUS) Strategy and are referenced in the 2024 Communication on Industrial Carbon Management. Early alignment gives beneficiaries a seat at the policy-making table.

• Delivers on Mission Innovation – CCUS, and supports the Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan) Action 9.

4. Regulatory Harmonisation & Standardisation

• By engaging with CEN/CENELEC/ISO technical committees, the project can shape upcoming EN ISO 27914-X standards on CO₂ pipeline transport and ISO 27915 update for geological storage.

• Uniform acceptance criteria lower administrative burden for permitting authorities (e.g. one risk-based methodology applicable in IT, PL and RO), expediting Art. 12 assessments under Directive 2009/31/EC.

• Harmonised rules ease cross-border transport inclusion in TEN-E Project of Common Interest (PCI) lists and upcoming Projects of Mutual Interest (PMI).

5. Access to the EU Innovation Ecosystem

• Direct links to flagship RIs – ECCSEL, EERA CCUS, Eurofleets+, EuroGeoSurveys – provide state-of-the-art labs, core repositories and super-computing facilities (e.g. PRACE).

• Integration into EIT InnoEnergy and Clean Energy Transition Partnership (CETP) communities supports commercialisation and start-up spin-offs (e.g. corrosion-resistant composite pipes, inline-FTIR impurity sensors).

• Collaboration with Key Digital Technologies Joint Undertaking (KDT-JU) unlocks AI-enhanced transient flow models and digital twins of CO₂ networks.

6. Funding Synergies and Leverage

• Results can unlock large-scale deployment funding from the EU Innovation Fund, Connecting Europe Facility (CEF-Energy), LIFE Clean Energy, Interregional Innovation Investments (I3) and future ETS 2 revenues.

• Alignment with ongoing Horizon projects (e.g. STRATEGY CCUS, Project PERTH, ACT III clusters) allows data re-use and joint dissemination, maximising TRL gain within fixed lump-sum budgets.

• Deliverables on impurity limits can be cited in IPCEI-CCUS dossiers, helping national authorities justify State-aid exemption.

7. Scale and Impact Potential

• Europe’s geology offers a portfolio of storage types (saline aquifers in the North Sea, depleted gas in NL/IT, basaltic formations in ES/PT). The project can test impurity interactions across all settings – impossible within a single Member State.

• Standardised impurity envelopes reduce CAPEX/OPEX for capture purification by 5-15 €/tCO₂, according to ZEP studies, improving the business case for >300 industrial sites mapped in the EU Industrial Carbon Management Atlas.

• Results serve as bankable evidence for insurers and lenders, facilitating blended finance (EIB, private equity) for cross-border CO₂ networks such as the Northern Lights, Porthos and BaltCCS corridors.

8. Concrete EU-Level Opportunities for Proposal Writers

• Use co-creation workshops with CEN/TC 459/SC 4 and ISO/TC 265 as formal milestones to demonstrate policy uptake.

• Incorporate at least two ports from different sea basins (e.g. Mediterranean & North Sea) to cover shipping impurity scenarios demanded by the call.

• Offer an open-access database of thermophysical and corrosion data, hosted on the EU Open Science Cloud (EOSC), fulfilling Horizon’s open-data mandate and reinforcing Europe’s digital leadership.

• Bundle a policy brief for DG ENER & DG CLIMA summarising recommended impurity thresholds tied to risk matrices – high visibility, high impact.

9. Strategic Value of Operating at EU Scale vs. National Projects

• Economies of scale: pooled budgets allow expensive high-pressure corrosion rigs (>€3 M) and long-term (12-month) core-flooding experiments that no single country would fund alone.

• Diversity of industrial CO₂ sources (steel, cement, waste-to-energy, bio-ethanol) across Member States enables statistically robust impurity datasets.

• Coordinated dissemination in 24 EU languages via the Horizon results platform magnifies public acceptance and accelerates replication in cohesion regions.

Bottom line: The call is uniquely positioned to translate scientific insights on CO₂ impurities into EU-wide technical standards, regulatory certainty and market pull, unlocking billions in low-carbon infrastructure investments that no national-level initiative could achieve alone.