The role of BECCS in providing negative emissions in Sweden under competing interests for forest-based biomass

Negative emissions are needed to meet climate mitigation targets and can be achieved through the capture and storage of biogenic CO2 emissions (BECCS). Sweden holds a large potential for BECCS from the industry and heat and power sectors. This work provides a first assessment of how the conditions for BECCS in Sweden are impacted by competition for forest-based biomass from other sectors, in this work represented by production of transportation fuels. An optimization model is applied to study how demand levels for negative emissions and biofuels, and availability of forestry resources, influence the optimal system design considering the electricity, district heating and biomass sectors. BECCS and direct air capture technologies are available for investments in the model. The results show that biomass availability and biofuel demand have a large impact on the choice of negative emission technology, where high competition for biomass favours DACCS rather than BECCS. The available biomass is prioritized for use in fuel production and sets the upper limit for BECCS. In this work, CHP plants are more competitive for BECCS implementation than pulp mills, due to the energy penalty for CHP plants having a smaller impact on the overall energy system performance. The findings indicate that in addition to considering techno-economic assessments of individual technologies, it is important to take into account the system context in which they operate