Bernecker & Müsgens (2026): Direct Air Capture in Europe – Where to Integrate, Where to Store, and What Drives Cost?
Maximilian Bernecker and Felix Müsgens, IN: arXiv, https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.05990
Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage (DACCS) can mitigate hard-to-abate emissions, e.g. from transport or industry. However, there is a wide variety of cost estimates for DACCS, driven, to a significant extent, by differences in electricity cost. At the same time, there is a notable gap in research that integrates direct air capturing systems into long-term energy system models. The authors separate direct air capturing, carbon transport, and carbon storage and integrate them into a European capacity expansion model for a fully decarbonised electricity system in 2050. The authors explore how two dimensions affect the total system costs of DACCS. The first dimension is the availability of CO₂ storage locations: In one analysis, storage locations are restricted to offshore storage locations in the North Sea only, i.e. depleted natural gas fields. The alternative analysis comprises suitable storage locations distributed across Europe, including onshore.