Sweden Puts $1B Behind Three Bio-CCS Projects to Store 5.75Mt CO2

Sweden's Energy Agency has granted nearly $1 billion (SEK 9.3 billion) to three companies — Renova, SYSAV and Öresundskraft — to capture and permanently store a combined 5.75 million tonnes of biogenic CO2 during the support period.

The awards close the second auction under Sweden's national bio-CCS support scheme, the reverse-auction program the government approved in 2024 after tasking the Energy Agency with its design back in 2021. The scheme backs Sweden's target of net-zero emissions by 2045 and negative emissions thereafter.

For the waste-to-energy and district heating operators involved, the money covers both capital investment and operating costs. The catch is a hard deadline: all three must commence geological storage of biogenic CO2 no later than four years after the funding decision.

How does the money split across the three projects?

The committed tonnages break down as follows:

• SYSAV — 3.6 million tonnes of biogenic CO2, the largest share of the round
• Öresundskraft — 1.26 million tonnes
• Renova — 890,000 tonnes

Those volumes sit on top of the first auction's result, in which Stockholm Exergi secured over $2 billion (SEK 20 billion) to store more than 11 million tonnes of CO2.

In plain terms: two auction rounds have now committed roughly $3 billion in public support to move biogenic CO2 from Swedish stacks into permanent geological storage.

Why a reverse auction?

The scheme's mechanism makes applicants compete to deliver negative emissions at the lowest support level per tonne of CO2. That design, rather than a fixed subsidy, is what pushed the second-round awards to SEK 9.3 billion for 5.75 million tonnes.

"The reverse auction enables public funding to be directed towards those projects that deliver the greatest possible climate benefit," said Carl Mikael Strauss, Head of Unit at the Swedish Energy Agency.

Notably, only three companies applied — the same three that won. The evaluation process judged their proposals to have viable plans for capture, transport and geological storage of biogenic CO2.

"Interest in the second auction demonstrates that there are companies willing to develop bio-CCS in Sweden, despite the market still being at an early stage of development," Strauss added.

That is the honest read of this round: demand exists, but it is thin, and the pool of bankable projects remains small.

What happens next?

Disbursement runs through the support period and only begins as geological storage activities launch, so the SEK 9.3 billion is committed capital, not built capacity — the tonnage targets remain paper figures until injection actually starts.

The clock is already running. The four-year window to first storage, combined with Sweden's 2045 net-zero target and its pledge of negative emissions beyond it, gives the Energy Agency a schedule it can be held to.

The milestone to watch is the first tonne of biogenic CO2 going underground under the second-round contracts — that is the moment these commitments stop being pledges and start being storage.