Climate tech company Vycarb has secured a $2.7 million grant from the Colorado Energy Office to deploy its full-stack carbon capture and storage (CCS) system in the state, helping decarbonize heavy-emitting industries. 

Released under the Clean Air Program, the grant is for an amount of up to $2,713,200, and it will support the design, installation, and operation of a Vycarb CCS system in Colorado.

The Clean Air Program is an initiative run by the Colorado Energy Office, with an allocated budget of $25 million that will be spent over a period of six years.

Vycarb was selected through a highly competitive process during which candidates were reviewed by the Clean Air Program team and the program’s Grant Review Committee.

As part of this process, grant recipients were required to demonstrate “additionality,” as well as an ability to cut emissions beyond what the law already requires, and each recipient needed to be able to deliver reductions that are direct rather than indirect.

Vycarb is the program’s first carbon management awardee that captures and stores industrial emissions. The company’s team has developed a technology that captures and stores low-purity CO2 without an intermediate purification step, becoming the first CCS developer to do so.

This grant comes after Vycarb successfully demonstrated this technology using seawater – an achievement that unlocks a potential pathway for making CCS more affordable and accessible. 

Commenting on the grant, Vycarb CEO and founder Garrett Boudinot noted Colorado’s abundant access to geologic storage sites, pointing out that these locations are rarely an economically viable option, as they require capturing and purifying CO2 before it can be stored.

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