EU Innovation Fund backs Direct Air Capture for the first time: up to €9.1 million for Sirona Technologies' Project Furu in Norway

Key highlights

• The first Direct Air Capture and storage (DACCS) project ever selected by the EU Innovation Fund
• A grant of up to €9.1 million for Project Furu
• Machines built in Brussels and deployed in CCB Energy's Energy Park in Norway
• Designed to grow to more than 100,000 tonnes of CO₂ removal per year
• Access to the EU's proposed purchase of 250 million tonnes of permanent removals

Brussels and Øygarden, 19 October 2026 – The European Commission has selected Project Furu, Sirona Technologies' Direct Air Capture and storage plant at CCB Energy's Energy Park in Øygarden, Norway, for a grant of up to €9.1 million from the EU Innovation Fund. Project Furu is the first DACCS project the Innovation Fund has ever selected, and the only one among the 77 projects announced today, which will share €3.4 billion across 23 countries of the European Economic Area.

Competition was intense: 358 projects applied for €17.5 billion, six times the €2.9 billion available. Project Furu is one of 16 pilot projects selected. Announcing the results, Commissioner for Climate, Net Zero and Clean Growth Wopke Hoekstra said: "These projects show that Europe's innovators are turning climate ambition into industrial leadership."

Removing CO₂ that is already in the air

Direct Air Capture (DAC) removes CO₂ that is already in the atmosphere and stores it permanently underground. Unlike carbon capture at a factory chimney, which prevents new emissions, DAC reduces the amount of CO₂ already in the air. The EU counts on permanent removals like these to balance the emissions it cannot eliminate, for example from aviation and other hard-to-abate sectors, and to reach net zero by 2050.

Europe's reference plant for Direct Air Capture

Sirona was founded in Brussels in 2023 on one idea: the fastest way to make Direct Air Capture affordable is to build the machines like products, in series on a production line, and to improve them with every batch. Since then, the team has built seven generations of machines and deployed plants in Kenya and the Middle East. Project Furu applies those lessons in Europe, and Sirona designed it as Europe's reference case for modular DACCS.

Every Project Furu machine is a standard container built on Sirona's production line in Brussels, then shipped to Norway. Running on hydropower, it draws in ambient air and separates out the CO₂. Captured CO₂ is purified and liquefied on site. The plan is to deliver it through CarbonLink, the onshore CO₂ terminal CCB Energy is developing in Energy Park, to Northern Lights, which stores CO₂ permanently about 2,600 metres below the North Sea seabed.

The plant is also designed to keep improving. Its reactors can use newer capture materials as they come to market, without rebuilding the plant, and heat pumps cut the energy needed for the process. Both are designed to lower the cost of every tonne removed.

Built to scale

The first machines will start capturing CO₂ in 2027. The plant uses standard containers, so Sirona can keep adding capacity on the same site as demand grows, without redesigning the plant. While the grant will fund the first phases of deployment, the project is planned to reach more than 100,000 tonnes of CO₂ removal per year, and the same model can be repeated at other European industrial sites with clean power and access to CO₂ storage.

Built to sell into the voluntary and compliance markets

Project Furu is already selling carbon removals to companies looking for European, permanent removals, and soon, to governments, as public demand is set to grow. In July, the European Commission proposed that the EU itself buy 250 million tonnes of domestic permanent carbon removals between 2031 and 2040, funded by auctioning additional ETS allowances. Only removals from DACCS and BioCCS, captured and stored in Europe, would qualify. The European Parliament and the Council are now negotiating the proposal. If adopted, it would make the EU the world's largest buyer of permanent carbon removals, buying from the same limited supply as companies.

These two markets, on top of the EU Innovation Fund grant, are important milestones that further derisk the project for the companies buying its removals.

Why Norway

• Clean, cheap power. Nearly 90% of Norway's electricity comes from hydropower, among the cleanest and cheapest in Europe.
• Storage next door. Northern Lights runs Europe's first commercial-scale open-access CO₂ storage and is already injecting CO₂ from European industry. It normally receives CO₂ by ship. CarbonLink, the onshore terminal CCB Energy is developing for land-based suppliers like Sirona, will sit right next to Project Furu, which significantly reduces transport cost.
• Access to the EU carbon market. As an EEA member, Norway applies EU climate law, so Project Furu can serve both corporate buyers and EU compliance demand.
• An industrial park built for green industry. Project Furu sits in Energy Park, which CCB Energy is developing in Øygarden together with Øygarden municipality and Vestland County. The park brings together land, utilities and shared CO₂ infrastructure, including CarbonLink, for projects like Furu.

"Europe will not reach net zero without permanently removing carbon from the atmosphere, and it needs that industry built here. With this grant, the EU is making Direct Air Capture part of its plan. We are proud to have earned the European Commission's trust, and our team will work relentlessly to show that Europe can build Direct Air Capture at industrial scale, and bring the cost down faster than anyone expects."
— Thoralf Gutierrez, CEO and co-founder of Sirona Technologies

Credits are available now

Project Furu credits are now available. Reach out at offtakes@sirona.tech.

About Sirona Technologies

Founded in 2023 and based in Brussels, Sirona Technologies builds and operates Direct Air Capture (DAC) systems that remove CO₂ from the atmosphere for permanent storage underground. Its machines are standard containers built on a production line in Brussels and deployed in modular clusters. Sirona has built seven generations of machines since 2023, has deployed plants in Kenya and the Middle East, and is now building Project Furu in Norway, its European flagship.

About the EU Innovation Fund

The Innovation Fund is one of the world's largest funding programmes for the demonstration of innovative net-zero technologies. It is financed by revenues from the EU Emissions Trading System and managed by the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA).

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