Provincie Groningen

With 575.000 inhabitants, the province of Groningen is part of the Energy Valley region in the Northern Netherlands. One of the region's goals is to reduce annual CO2-emissions by 15-20 Mton from 2011 onwards. The province of Groningen facilitates the development of a large scale CCS-project in the Northern Netherlands. This region provides excellent perspectives for the development of a national and international CO2 cluster. In addition to an extensive knowledge network, the region offers large potential storage locations and there are plans to build multiple large CO2 point sources. The Northern Netherlands CCS-project represents all elements of the CCS chain (capture, transport, reuse and storage), as well as all CO2 capture techniques (pre-combustion, post-combustion and oxyfuel combustion) at Nuon, RWE and SEQ International respectively. The Northern Netherlands has a great deal of knowledge to offer with respect to the transport of (natural) gas. Furthermore, the region offers both onshore and offshore possibilities for the storage of CO2. The CCS project is divided into three phases: the initial phase (2010-2015), the implementation phase (2015-2020) and the marketdriven phase (2020 and beyond). This CCS-project is subject of the recently published ‘Action Plan CCS Northern Netherlands'. This Action Plan sketches realistic scenarios and goals that will enable the Northern Netherlands not only to achieve significant CO2 reductions in the short term, but also place it on the map as a leading region with respect to energy innovation.