ABB to provide CO2 storage infra for Norway's Northern Lights project

Aker Solutions, an engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractor, has granted ABB to provide main electrical, automation, and safety systems for Norway's Northern Lights project.

Northern Lights is the first industrial carbon capture and storage project to create an open and adaptable infrastructure to store CO2 safely from companies across Europe.

It is a joint venture between Equinor, Shell, and TotalEnergies. To increase to over five million tonnes (MT) per year in a second development phase, the project's first phase, scheduled to be finished in the middle of 2024, would have the ability to permanently store up to 1.5 MT of CO2 annually.

Operators will have more insight into the Northern Lights terminal's functioning thanks to ABB's market-leading distributed control system ABB AbilityTM System 800xA, which analyses historical and real-time data and displays plant measurements and KPIs right away.

As a result, operators will be in a better position to assess possibilities for improving the performance of assets and processes and make more precise, well-informed decisions.

The Northern Lights Øygarden Terminal in western Norway would receive collected and liquefied CO2 from emitters via specially constructed ships that would be remotely operated from Equinor's facilities at the nearby Sture Terminal.

ABB would construct a cutting-edge Extended Operator Workstation at the Northern Lights Terminal that will function in tandem with the central control room in Sture to facilitate remote operations. The two will seamlessly communicate to reduce response times and support remote operations around the clock.

In addition to the shore-to-ship solution, ABB technology would power the entire project by integrating high and low-voltage switchboards, transformers, and the main electrical system through its power process management system.

Kristin Glenna, project manager for Northern Lights at Aker Solutions, told the media that ABB is a market leader in distributed control systems and a dependable partner with in-depth knowledge of their industry and proficiency in both on- and offshore, including subsea projects.

Per Erik Holsten, Head of ABB Energy Industries in Northern Europe, said that with a global capacity of 1.7 billion tonnes of CO2 capture required by 20301, the ability to capture and store industrial CO2 emissions, which cannot currently be prevented, is crucial if the world is to reach net-zero by 2050.

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