BRUSSELS - Swedish power company Vattenfall uses its position as EU-advisor to receive EU-fundings for developing new technology for storage of carbon dioxide, several civil society groups say.

One of Europe's biggest energy suppliers, Swedish Vattenfall, is being criticized for its new project regarding storage of carbon dioxide. Several civil society groups say that the company uses its position as EU-advisor to receive EU-fundings for developing the new technology.

“Vattenfall is part of the main advisory group of the European Commission which gives advice on how much money the latter should give the companies”, says Yiorgos Vassalos, at the research group Corporate Europe Observatory, to The Swedish Wire.

In response, Vattenfall said that the criticism is exaggerated as the company doesn’t play any distinguish part in the group and that the decisions regarding storage of carbon dioxide have been taken in consensus. 

Last summer the stately owned Vattenfall started a pilot plant at Schwarze Pumpe in Germany to test new technology for storing carbon dioxide (CO2). The project, named Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), is one of the company's major research projects, aiming to decrease its effect on the climate. The idea of CCS is to capture CO2 in the power plants, compress it into a liquid in order to later store it under ground instead of releasing it into the atmosphere.

Meanwhile Vattenfall built its new test plant the European Commission (EC) suggested to build 10-12 of these CCS demonstration plants until 2015. However, the EC's proposal was based on the advice of an advisory body named European Technology Platform for Zero Emission Fossil Fuel Power (ETP-ZEP). The ETP-ZEP is dominated by the industry and Vattenfall is playing the leading role, holding the presidency.

“The idea came from the advisory body. And these are the same companies that are going to take the EU-subsidies to get the plants working. They are not in a position where they can make objective conclusions and give advices about CCS. They are only struggling for funds to gain market shares”, says Yiorgos Vassalos who is researcher at the Corporate Europe Observatory and campaigner for Alter EU, a coalition of 160 civil society groups, trade unions and public affairs firms.

Though, he admits that the advisory body should include companies such as Vattenfall, but the problem is that the ETP-ZEP is dominated by the industry. Yiorgos Vassalos means that if the EC would want to make a broad and truly scientific assessment, it should not give the major influence to the companies but to independent scientists, public research institutions, national administrations and environmental groups.

At Vattenfall they think that the critique is unjustified. The company's CEO Lars G Josefsson points out that it is the EC that decides on which companies should receive financial support, not the advisory body.

“It's the same way in other industries as well and I don't see any problem. And regarding our Schwarze plant we paid for it ourselves”, says Lars G Josefsson to The Swedish Wire.