Belfast-based carbon capture startup Nuada has become the first Northern Irish recipient of the EU’s EIC Accelerator prize, securing €2.5m (£2.1m).
The accelerator, run by the European Innovation Council (EIC), offers funding and business support to startups in emerging markets in Europe.
“The award from the EIC Accelerator is another stamp of approval for Nuada’s technology and our potential to disrupt and advance industrial decarbonisation,” said Jose Casaban, co-CEO of Nuada.
“It was a highly competitive process, so being selected as one of only a handful of UK companies and the first in Northern Ireland to secure the award is very rewarding for our team of experts and fuels our mission to commercialise critical technology for decarbonising industry”.
Nudada is a carbon capture company that works with cement, lime, steel and energy companies, providing carbon dioxide filtration to trap CO2 released in the manufacturing process.
The company raised £7.9m in its Series A round in 2022, receiving funds from Barclays, the Clean Growth Fund and the Business Growth Fund. It has also received a handful of grants from Innovate UK.
The UK government has positioned carbon capture technology as central to its wider net-zero ambitions. In her first budget statement from October last year, Chancellor Rachel Reeves committed £3.9bn of funding for CCUS projects.
Government targets to capture and store 20-30 million tonnes of carbon per year by 2030 were dashed last December when parliament concluded it was likely unachievable.
Nuada co-CEO Conor Hamill said a major factor in this is the high capital costs and energy intensity required to operate CCUS facilities.
“The time to impact the market transition phase of the UK’s Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage (CCUS) vision is now,” said Hamill.
“The energy intensity and equipment costs of the incumbent processes are just not sustainable to growth. The current expenditure levels and liabilities associated with these traditional capture solutions risk the pace and scale of the Government’s ambitions.”
The Nuada executive claimed his company’s technology is an example of the “next generation” of carbon capture that will address adoption barriers.
Nuada has two capture plants in Europe as well as partnerships with international manufacturers.
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