Swedish Energy Agency allocate €30 million to sustainable methanol project

The Swedish Energy Agency has injected nearly €30million into an innovative industrial method of producing methanol from a wide range of recovered end of life streams and hydrogen from electrolysis. This project, known as Project AIR, is being fulfilled by Perstorp in conjunction with Uniper and Fortum is targeting an annual reduction of carbon emissions of as much as half a million tons.

This exciting project launches an integrated process that offers the first competitive source of sustainable methanol to Europe’s energy-intensive chemical industries and beyond. Project AIR has made viable production of low carbon and renewable methanol a reality. 

Project AIR will see the construction of the world’s first commercial, industrial scale plant using a Carbon Capture and Utilisation technology to convert carbon dioxide, residue streams, renewable hydrogen and biomethane into sustainable methanol. The plant will also be home to the planet’s largest hydrogen electrolysis unit providing renewable hydrogen for chemical production.

The plant will need to be equipped with the most robust and efficient instrumentation to ensure that it is working at optimal efficiency in terms of methanol production, whilst complying with strict environmental and safety regulations. There will be a need for reliable and accurate temperature, pressure, level and flow monitoring and switches as well as gas detectors, primarily for CO and flammable gases indication. Flame and smoke detectors will be installed for fire detection and suppression systems.

Project AIR was approved for the next evaluation level within the EU’s Innovation Fund back in March 2021. This is one of the largest funding programs to support the development of new low carbon technology in the world and Perstorp have just celebrated further acclaim and success with the award of the grant from Sweden’s Energy Agency of near to €30M. 

“It is directly crucial for the climate change and the goal of reaching a circular climate neutral welfare society that we accelerate the use of new innovative green technology on an industrial scale. That is why this investment is strategically important,” according to Robert Andrén, Director-General of the Swedish Energy Agency. 

The target of Project AIM is to replace the approximately 200,000 tons of fossil-based methanol used in Perstorp’s chemical production processes in Europe every year. This would support the downstream community in its efforts to increase the level of use and manufacture of competitive, renewable and circular products whilst reducing their carbon footprint. 

This project is aiming to achieve reduction of 500,000 tons in greenhouse gas emissions every year. While Perstorp await the EU’s decision on whether they will qualify for funding, the plan is that by 2025 they will be producing a sustainable source of methanol.