The SHARC (Sustainable Hydrogen and Recovery of Carbon) project introduces electrolysis and carbon capture and storage (CCS) solutions that allow the quick and efficient reduction of greenhouse gas emissions at the refinery. With this transformation project, a reduction of more than 4 million tons of CO2 emissions can be achieved at the Porvoo refinery in the first 10 years of operation.

Our project is one of the largest development projects to produce green hydrogen in the European refineries and it supports our goal to transform the Porvoo refinery to the most sustainable refinery in Europe by 2030. The green hydrogen would be primarily used in our Porvoo refinery’s processes, where it would replace hydrogen produced from fossil feedstocks.

—Markku Korvenranta, Executive Vice President in Neste’s Oil Products

Production of green hydrogen also generates renewable heat. In connection with the 120 MW green hydrogen project, Neste has started a preliminary study with Porvoon Energia on the utilization of renewable heat in district heating. Porvoon Energia is a regional Finnish energy company focusing on heat and electricity production and distribution as well as development of the electricity network.

Hydrogen projects at Neste’s Porvoo refinery contribute considerably to the EU green hydrogen value chain. In July 2022, Neste became the first Finnish company to receive IPCEI (Important Project of Common European Interest) status from the European Commission for its hydrogen projects. In December 2022, Business Finland awarded Neste €27.7 million of public funding for its renewable hydrogen projects at the Porvoo refinery.