Endrava provides tools for the green transition

In the photo: Founders of Endrava, Valentin Vandenmolden and Eric Rambech.

Endrava is a climate tech-company founded in 2016 by engineers Eric Rambech and Valentin Vandenmolden. Their map-based platform, CaptureMap, shows large CO2 emitters on a global scale. With their in-depth industrial knowledge and consulting skills they help companies reduce greenhouse gas emissions by using data.

Endrava joined CCUS Norway in the beginning of this year, and for us and the network to get to know the company and their tools, we met with Eric and Valentin in their office in Oslo. Emil Yde Aasen from Aker Carbon Capture, who has known Endrava for quite some time and has experience with their tool CaptureMap, joined us and provided valuable insight and a user´s perspective on CaptureMap.

Started out as a consulting company

Eric and Valentin both worked at DNV when they decided to start their own company, Endrava, with the purpose of helping companies to reduce their greenhouse gas-emissions. They worked with different clients; municipalities, counties, authorities, and some private companies, helping them get control over their emissions and find strategies to reduce them.

Turned into a tech-company

Over time they also started developing an overview over CO2 emissions in Europe and abroad. Eric and Valentin explain that they gathered data and turned this data into valuable input for their clients:

-It started out as a project for the Norwegian oil and gas association, now called Offshore Norge, says Eric. Today CaptureMap provides CO2 data wrapped in a visual and intuitive interface. A great tool for the CCUS industry.  

-We turn large amount of data into something people can act on, says Eric, - and we do this by addressing how they can make decisions based on the information they have available.

The importance of building the CCUS-value chain

To build CCUS-value chains, different companies need to collaborate. And for this to happen you need trust. Spending time together, sharing knowledge and experiences is a great way to build the needed trust to move forward. Emil Yde Aasen explains that it is important to have a common understanding on the different aspects of the CCUS value chain and that CaptureMap is a great starting point:

-It is great when tools like CaptureMap from Endrava and CCUS Norway comes together to assist in building value chains like ´Carbon Capture Utilization and storage´. I think CaptureMap is of great value because it visualizes the emission sources and shows the landscape around them. It´s not only 15.000 datapoints, but it is also 15.000 assets. It gives an overview of the different emitter points, shows the difference between fossil and biogenic emissions, and it shows the difference between countries and states and between different industries. You need this knowledge to understand the landscape, says Emil.

In the photo: Valentin Vandenmolden, Emil Yde Aasen and Eric Rambech.

There is a need to bridge the gap between the different actors in the CCUS value chain. -A goal for us with CaptureMap is to become the industry standard, so that when a capture provider goes to someone who can deliver transport and storage, they can talk about the same facility and the same intel and understand exactly what’s going on. And we want to be that common truth, says Eric. - And if we could do that, across the globe – that would be really cool.

-Now we are looking into how far each plant has come in their de-carbonization process meaning which facilities have carbon capture in construction, which once are in the developing phase, and which ones are already in operation. By doing this we start to see pockets maturity of carbon capture happening around the world, but that could also happen in Norway. One actor alone is too small to lift the cost of building that value chain, but when seeing other actors in their area they can contact them and see if they can build infrastructure together. This is an important value of CaptureMap especially when this database is up and running, says Eric.

For more information about CaptureMap, see www.capturemap.no

CaptureMap – a tool to make new business

Having a better awareness of the international scaling potential of CCUS is of great value for the suppliers of Norway. - We now have a cement plant in Norway that is building a capture plant, yet we have another 2200 other cement plants around the world with similar problems and complexity. They also need to do something about their emissions. Understanding the market potential and the potential of exporting both technology and knowledge could bring business to suppliers, says Eric.

Endrava like to say that CaptureMap should be the best starting point to find the best decarbonization projects out there. Suppliers may use the tool to find clients and sort how to prioritize between them depending on such as fossil vs biogenic CO2, location and the potential of building clusters. Policymakers such as politicians can use this to get an overview of the different emitters, the size of the emissions and how they are located, how the infrastructure around them is and make plans based on valuable information.

-We also hope that CaptureMap can be used in education too. We give highly rebated free access to universities when they contact us, and there is even someone working on a PhD who uses it. If we are to educate people on the issues related to climate change, it would make sense to show the emissions, and which actors are emitting the most. Not for shaming, but to see which problems we all need to solve first and then work together to make it happen. We need to have a good grasp of the problem in order to make the right strategies to solve them, says Valentin.

We build the CCUS industry by working together

-The more we work with the CCUS-value chain we realize that this is a collaboration between many stakeholders. And the way that these are brought together is sometimes by luck, but sometimes we must help that collaboration take place, and for that we need member organizations such as CCUS Norway, says Eric.

-What´s cool is that CCUS Norway is cross-industries and brings companies together that are not necessarily used to working together. There is a need to re-enforce these ties, Valentin adds.

Thank you for taking the time and for sharing your knowledge with us and the rest of the CCUS Norway-network! We look forward to continued collaborations and that we – together – build strong CCUS value chains, so that we can reach our common goal: reduced and removed CO2 from the atmosphere.

In the photo: Emil Yde Aasen, Valentin Vandenmolden, Eric Rambech and Camilla Brox.