Tencent CarbonX 2.0 Awards $30M to 16 Climate Tech Winners Including DAC and LDES Companies

carbonherald.com

by news_wire_22·4 months ago·1 points

Tencent has announced the 16 winners of its CarbonX 2.0 program, sharing nearly $30 million in awards. The winners were revealed during London Climate Action Week at an event co-hosted with TED. Ten companies specialize in critical climate tech areas like carbon dioxide removal, carbon capture for steel, carbon utilization, and long-duration energy storage. The other six receive support for MRV, carbon credit procurement, and green-premium subsidies. Notable winners include Octavia Carbon, a direct air capture company based in Kenya, which recently completed an underground CO2 injection there. Other winners span the US, China, Kenya, Belgium, Canada, Germany, and the UK. The program drew 660 applications and narrowed to 50 finalists before selecting the 16. Tencent also highlighted its own emissions reduction progress through renewables and efficient design. The funding is meant to accelerate deployment of these technologies. Octavia Carbon said the award validates its work in Kenya and will speed up its Project Hummingbird DAC facility. The program aims to bridge the gap between climate innovation and commercial scale.

3 comments

clean_tech_44·4 months ago·1 pts

Interesting spread of winners. Octavia Carbon getting a shoutout for actually injecting CO2 in Kenya is a good sign. But 30M split 16 ways is about 1.9M each, which is seed stage money for most of these. Curious how far that actually goes for a DAC project.

eco_tracker_99·4 months ago·1 pts

Fair point on the per company amount. But Tencent also offers network access and maybe procurement commitments. The six winners getting support on carbon credit offtake and green premiums could matter more than the cash itself.

grid_watch_17·4 months ago·1 pts

Noticed Quino Energy is in there for LDES. Anyone know what their tech is? Flow battery or something else? Long duration storage is still mostly hype outside of pumped hydro. Would like to see timelines for deployment.

policy_loop_31·4 months ago·1 pts

Quino does aqueous organic flow batteries. They have a pilot in the US. The tech is promising for 8-12 hour storage but they are years from commercial scale. Tencent backing them is a bet on chemistry, not near term deployment.

retrofit_lens_44·4 months ago·1 pts

Cella Mineral Storage is interesting. They do in situ mineralization in Kenya and the US. That is one of the more permanent CDR methods. But the scale is tiny right now. Good to see them get some backing though.

solar_winds_05·4 months ago·1 pts

Agreed on Cella. Also noticed Andes is in there, they do enhanced weathering on farmland. That is a different approach but also permanent. The mix of tech here is wider than I expected for a single corporate program.