AmCham Sustainability Forum: Hafslund Celsio Site Visit

AmCham members representing a range of industries joined AmCham’s latest Sustainability Forum featuring an exclusive site visit to Hafslund Celsio’s Klemetsrud waste-to-energy plant, with presentations by Hafslund Celsio and Zynk. Participants gained insight into the plant’s groundbreaking, internationally significant technology, and learned about public-private collaboration that is being enabled through the newly established Oslo Carbon Cluster.

Bjerkås

Jannicke Gerner Bjerkås
Director CSS & Carbon Markets

Speaker Images_Jan Glendrange

Jan Glendrange
Partner

Zynk logo
Speaker Images_Gunnar Romsaas

Gunnar Romsaas
Senior Advisor

Zynk logo

CCS + Waste-to-Energy: From Niche to a Mainstream Solution

Hafslund Celsio’s CCS & Carbon Markets Director Jannicke Gerner Bjerkås provided participants with an introduction of the Klemetsrud plant. Operating since 1985, the facility is Norway’s largest incineration plant, handling residual waste for the City of Oslo and other municipalities, as well as Norwegian and international household waste. Direct incineration is applied to e.g. hospital waste.

Emissions from the Klemetsrud plant currently account for 20% of Oslo’s fossil CO₂ emissions. Now, a groundbreaking CCS plant is being built on the site and will capture approximately 350,000 tons of CO₂ per year, with planned completion in 2029. Hafslund Celsio’s CCS project is part of the Norwegian government’s CCS initiative, Longship, aiming to demonstrate a full value chain from CO₂-capture to permanent storage. This will be one of the world’s first carbon capture facilities for waste incineration,  made possible through a public-private partnership between the Norwegian state, the municipality of Oslo and Hafslund Celsio. CO₂ will be transported and permanently stored in geological formations under the seabed in the North Sea.

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The value chain has already proven to be commercially viable, as agreements have been formed with large emission sources in Northern Europe. Moreover, Hafslund Celsio has entered into an agreement with Microsoft to deliver 1.1 million tons of permanent carbon removal over a period of 10 years. The agreement represents an important contribution to the carbon capture project and promotes the waste incineration sector as a credible supplier of permanent carbon removal.

Promising and Profitable Value Chains

In 2023, a feasibility study was commissioned by Hafslund Celsio and the City of Oslo to assess the potential for the establishment of a carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) industry cluster. Members of the study’s working group, Zynk Partner Jan Glendrange and Senior Advisor Gunnar Romsaas, presented key study findings. The study concluded that a business cluster represents great potential as an important catalyst for solving environmental challenges, with the added benefit of generating positive societal effects and financial investments.

As a result of the study, Oslo Carbon Cluster, a value-creating collaboration, was established in March 2025. The cluster aims to realize a profitable value chain for capture, transport and storage of CO₂. Together, collaborating companies, investors, research and educational institutions, and public authorities, will collaborate to solve common challenges more efficiently than what would have been possible individually.

Equipped with these insights, participants embarked on a site tour lead by Hafslund Celsio Head of Communication Truls E. A. Jemtland and Operational Risk Manager Ida Andersskog. During the fascinating tour, members observed how the 40-year-old building has been retrofitted to cater to today’s waste needs and current technology – and soon – one of the world’s first carbon capture facilities for waste incineration.

About AmCham Sustainability Forum

Future success is dependent upon running a sustainable business – for people, planet, and profit. Hence, AmCham brings select, cross-industry member company representatives together on an ongoing basis to discuss opportunities, facilitate open exchange and determine how AmCham members can best contribute to Norwegian and US sustainability agendas going forward.

Please read more about our Sustainability Forum and contact Margrethe.Harboe@amcham.no for interest in future meetings.