A CO₂ collection and transport network for Austria

Initial facts and figures
Austria has committed to achieving climate neutrality by 2040. The remaining hard-to-abate CO₂ emissions, as well as biogenic CO₂ emissions from large individual sources in industry and the energy sector, must therefore be captured and transported to users such as the chemical industry for further use (utilisation) and/or storage. This requires a new pipeline system.

The responsible Ministry for Climate Protection, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology (BMK) has commissioned a consortium consisting of AIT-Austrian Institute of Technology, Frontier Economics, Montanuniversität Leoben and AGGM to carry out a feasibility study for this infrastructure.

Here is a brief outline of the results:

4 scenarios were considered: two scenarios each with approx. 13 Mt/a CO₂ and 20 Mt/a CO₂ and each with and without domestic storage.
The regional networks for collecting the CO₂ are operated in gaseous form and routed to hubs where the CO₂ is liquefied for further transport to the storage facilities or abroad.
An east-west connection between Lower Austria and Upper Austria is planned, as well as a north-south connection from Upper Austria to Carinthia via Styria. These axes will serve as the central axes of the future CO₂ network and will be connected to a future European CO₂ network via Italy and Germany.
The CO₂ network will be almost exclusively a new construction.
The main part of the costs lies in the operating costs of the compressors for compressing the gas.
Depending on the scenario, the transport costs in an Austria-wide CO₂ network are between 40 and almost 50 €/t CO₂ for pure transport within Austria. In addition to the domestic transport costs, there are also the costs of capture, foreign transport and storage. According to the study, the total CO₂ avoidance costs therefore amount to between 150 and 250 €/t CO₂.

Conclusion:
A CO₂ network for Austria is feasible but is associated with high capital and operating costs. There is currently no regulatory framework for the transport of CO₂. However, it can be deduced from the study that a CO₂ collection and transport network in Austria is necessary in order to secure the business location in the long term and to achieve climate neutrality in a targeted manner. Only with a CO₂ transport network can individual branches of industry be decarbonised and biogenic CO₂ can be removed from the atmosphere via biomass.

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Shaping the energy infrastructure of tomorrow.

AGGM Austrian Gas Grid
Management AG
Peak Vienna
Floridsdorfer Hauptstraße 1
1210 Vienna, Austria

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