The carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) scheme is expected to attract investments of about ₹37,500 crore and create carbon-capture capacity of 7 million tonnes a year, they said. The next step is to get the approval of the Union Cabinet.
New Delhi: The expenditure finance committee, under the finance ministry, has cleared a ₹19,700-crore scheme to help develop technologies and reservoirs to capture and store carbon emissions from large industrial units such as power plants, steel mills and cement factories to help reduce emission, people aware of the development said.
The carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) scheme is expected to attract investments of about ₹37,500 crore and create carbon-capture capacity of 7 million tonnes a year, they said. The next step is to get the approval of the Union Cabinet.
The government had announced the scheme in FY27 budget with an outlay of ₹20,000 crore.
It will focus on developing cutting-edge technologies and identifying carbon storage reservoirs. There is likely to be a dedicated ₹2,500-crore R&D fund to support technology innovation, one of the persons said.
CCUS is any technology that captures CO2 emissions from large industrial sources, including iron and chemical plants, preventing CO2 from entering the atmosphere. It could also help in emerging areas like coal gasification and low-carbon hydrogen.
While the technology remains capital intensive at present, costs are expected to decline with scale and wider deployment, industry experts said.
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CCUS at scale will achieve higher readiness levels in end-use applications across industrial sectors, including, power, steel, cement, refineries and chemicals, one of the persons said. Commercial projects in these sectors could be connected with pipeline transport for end use applications like enhanced oil and coal bed methane recovery.
