Circular Carbon: building a strong regional ecosystem

From energy transition to economic impact

In her opening speech, CEO Marieke Abbink outlined the broader context. There is a lot going on in the political, economic, and social spheres. Programmes such as Nij Begun ('new beginning') offer new opportunities for Noord-Nederland. This calls for join decisions. How do we connect climate goals to employment, innovative strength, broad prosperity, and earning capacity?

New Energy Coalition sees a clear role for itself in this. Whereas we previously often operated as a project partner, our role is increasingly shifting to that of a director of the regional ecosystem. In this role, we ensure that the right parties are involved in the right places and that a joint script is developed.

Green gas offers concrete opportunities in the region

New Energy Coalition has years of solid expertise in the field of green gas. Ruud Paap, green gas expert at New Energy Coalition and CEO of Platform Groen Gas since September 2025, has been working on this topic for over 18 years.

Green gas, produced from biogenic residual flows or via hydrogen in combination with CO2(methane), offers opportunities for Noord-Nederland.

It can be fed directly into the existing gas infrastructure and still has significant growth potential, thanks to scalable and applicable solutions.

Five green gas value chains under closer inspection

In the past period, we analysed five green gas value chains in the northern energy region:

1. Manure value chain: Huge potential, currently only about 5% utilised. Major bottlenecks: permits, grid connections, and revenue models.
2. Value chain Household organic waste flows (GTF & ONF): A strong base with two major industrial players in the region; further scaling up requires infrastructure and permitting space.
3. Value chain flows from the food industry (FCI): Increasing momentum, with competition from the biobased economy.
4. Sewage sludge value chain: Further optimisation possible, particularly in technology and heat coupling.
5. Gasification value chain: Promising initiatives, but further technological and financial development needed.

Focus green gas on the farmyard

The greatest opportunities for the region lie on the farm. New revenue models are necessary to enable scaling up. European developments such as the Renure legislation offer perspective here.

New Energy Coalition is working closely with stakeholders such as the province of Groningen on the TripleP+ project to achieve sustainable agriculture where "waste" materials like manure are used optimally to produce energy and raw materials. This project explores new manure processing methods with lower nitrogen emissions and higher efficiency, for example in clusters of manure processors. Residual products are then reintroduced into the farm's cycle.

Innovation and knowledge development

In addition, we can contribute to knowledge transfer and professionalisation through our New Energy Business School. Innovation remains essential, for example by using other raw materials such as grass for sustainable energy and/or green raw materials, as in the Watts in Grass!? project, or by capturing, storing, or reusing CO2 from biogas. This creates a direct link with the topic of CCUS, which is also included in our scope.

CCUS: from policy to regional opportunities

In addition to green gas, the theme day also focused on CCUS (Carbon Capture, Utilisation & Storage). European and national policies on CCUS are fully in development. There are enormous challenges related to capturing, storing, and/or reusing CO2, while the sector is still in its infancy.

Urgency of carbon management

1. Fossil CO2 emissions will not stop any time soon.
2. The global atmospheric carbon budget to stay within 1,5°C of warming has almost been exhausted.
3. Industry and chemistry remain dependent on carbon as a raw material.

Major projects such as Porthos, Aramis en Northern Lights show that CCS is taking concrete shape. Also in the field of CCU, for example within the ConsenCUS project and in it Chemport Europe programme, steps are being taken. At the same time, the entire value chain (from capture to transport, storage, transformation, and application) must be further developed.

Policy impulses at national level

At the national level, the new cabinet is focusing on:

• Investments in CCS in the North Sea and CCU
• Blue hydrogen in combination with CCS offers opportunities, supported by the recently announced SDE++ subsidy
• Innovation in negative emissions and carbon removal
• An international knowledge cluster for Carbon Management

In addition, economic growth is being driven through energy and climate technology with biobased and circular applications and carbon technology/CCU.

Noord-Nederland has the knowledge, innovation and an enthusiastic network of stakeholders available to further develop this CO2 value chain. New Energy Coalition is keen to contribute its knowledge and network to to this endeavour.

Writing the script together

The conclusion of the theme day was clear: large-scale projects are complex and capital-intensive. Therefore, it's wise to start in niches where technological innovation, regional collaboration, and economic feasibility converge.

This is precisely where New Energy Coalition can fulfil its role as director in the areas of connection, knowledge, and implementation. We ensure that the right parties are present, that every link in the value chain is covered, and that bottlenecks are identified. This way, each party knows its role and we can jointly develop a script for scaling up.

This strategic theme day therefore marks an important step in our course. Circular carbon is not only a climate issue, but also an economic one. By focusing on strong value chains for green gas, applying CCUS and focusing on infrastructure, policy, innovation, and revenue models, Noord-Nederland to position itself as a national leader.