Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) at scale is a critical part of global efforts to reduce CO2 emissions and achieve net zero climate goals targets. By sharing curated datasets from research, pilot, demonstration and industry-scale CCS projects, CO2DataShare aims to be a valuable resource to the international research community working to accelerate CCS R&D and the worldwide deployment of CCS.
Making CCS datasets globally accessible
SINTEF developed the CO2DataShare online digital portal with financial backing from Gassnova’s CLIMIT RD&D Program (Norway) and the U.S. DOE Office of Fossil Energy & Carbon Management (USDOE). It recently came under the stewardship of the Norwegian CCS Research Centre (NCCS) and its successor gigaCCS. NTNU and IEAGHG are project partners. Sigma2 hosts the portal on the NIRD Service Platform and stores the data on NIRD. We have since 2024 offered Advanced User Support to enhance the portal’s functionality, user-friendliness, and robustness to accommodate datasets on NIRD related to CO2 capture and transportation.
CO2DataShare has curated and published datasets from several CO2 storage projects. The first dataset made available on the portal was from Equinor’s Sleipner project where up to 1 Million tonnes of CO2 has been captured and reinjected each year since 1996. Sleipner was one of the first CCS projects in the world and research organisations and companies have for years used this as a reference for CO2 storage and now they can access quality data from the project. Subsequently, other datasets have been added to the platform. These include rock mechanical data generated by the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI) for the Northern Lights project, which is the storage part of the Norwegian full-scale CCS project Longship, Smeaheia reference dataset and datasets from the injection and storage of CO2 in the Illinois Basin – Decatur Project, USA.
The published datasets have proved very popular as evidenced by the following statistics:
- The Sleipner Benchmark model is downloaded 3 000 times.
- The Sleipner 4D seismic can show 15 600 component downloads in total and one of the seismic datasets is downloaded more than 2 400 times.
- The Smeaheia dataset has been downloaded more than 1,500 times; in total 16 000 component downloads are registered.
- The Decatur dataset components are downloaded 8 000 times, where the Petrel model alone is downloaded 1 800 times.
There are increasing scientific publications that reference the datasets and show that they have tested concepts and models on real-world data.
Ambitions going forward
The new phase of the CO2DataShare project aims to advance the current digital platform to enable the sharing of datasets from the whole CCS chain, enhance data-sharing capabilities, and publish new curated high-quality CCS datasets relevant to providing valuable insights and fostering innovation. Data owners planning to share CCS data during 2025 are NGI, SINTEF, and Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Potential impact
CO2DataShare is the only open-access solution for data sharing dedicated to CCS and has already achieved international reach. To date, 54,000 data component downloads have been recorded from >1000 organizations across 90 countries. The unique CCS data-sharing framework offers significant value as it contributes to:
- Driving Innovation: Sharing CCS data fosters collaboration, supports AI and digital analysis, and enables new insights, model testing, and technology development.
- Ensuring Reliability: Open data allows researchers to validate findings, compare methods, and improve analysis across research groups contributing to faster commercialisation and deployment.
- Reducing costs and risks: Learning from past projects helps avoid mistakes, optimize planning, and enhance CCS economics.
- Building expertise: Transparent data sharing supports education and skill development for future CCS professionals.