Carbon storage will play a key role in helping the UK to achieve net zero, and there is significant potential to store carbon offshore. In 2022, NSTA announced that it would be holding the world’s first large-scale, competitive bid process to award licences for the development of carbon storage facilities at thirteen marine sites. Located off the coasts of Norfolk, Teesside, Liverpool and Aberdeen, these sites, together, are capable of storing almost 10% of the UK’s total greenhouse gas emissions.

Organising a licensing round of such national importance was a major undertaking for NSTA. It needed to find an effective way to share information with all potential bidders and manage the application process efficiently. At the same time, NSTA needed to ensure that the process was equitable and open to all kinds of potential operators, from the large energy companies already operating in the North Sea to small, niche carbon storage companies.

NSTA had been using Esri’s geographic information system (GIS) technology for many years to share geospatial information both externally and internally, enabling people to make fast, informed decisions. It decided to use a combination of products from Esri’s ArcGIS suite to create new datasets, processes and mapping applications to support the carbon storage licensing process, from start to finish.

The organisation began by using ArcGIS Pro to compile all available data about the thirteen designated carbon storage zones and surrounding marine areas. It included vital information like bidding area boundaries, along with data from The Crown Estate and Crown Estate Scotland, to create a ‘single source of the truth’ that could be used not only internally but also shared with potential bidders.

NSTA then made all this data, covering 12,000 km2 of seabed, available to any company interested in bidding for a carbon storage licence, via its open data portal. Built with ArcGIS Hub technology, the portal enabled bidders to either download or stream the information they were interested in directly into their own systems.

To complement the open data portal, NSTA created an external web app, using ArcGIS Online, that allowed potential bidders to explore live maps and analyse all of the available datasets online, without the need for specialist software or skills. Bidders could see the zones that were available and identify factors that could affect any future appraisal and development including nearby infrastructure, wind farms, and seismic surveys.

NSTA also built an internal web app in ArcGIS Online to support the administration of the licensing process. This app provided a central portal for access to all available information and applications from interested organisations. It facilitated effective collaboration between NSTA’s employees and supported the end-to-end process of communicating with potential bidders, receiving and assessing applications and awarding contracts.

An efficient, end-to-end licensing process
NSTA’s streamlined, ArcGIS-driven process helped to avoid duplicated tasks and created efficiencies throughout the administration of this first-of-its-kind carbon storage bidding process. All of the bids were submitted in the same format, which helped to create a level playing field for organisations competing for carbon capture licences in the North Sea. The organisation successfully awarded 14 companies 21 licences to store carbon in depleted oil and gas reservoirs and saline aquifers, paving the way for up to 30 million tonnes of carbon dioxide to be stored annually by 2030.

A broad range of applications
The external ArcGIS web app helped to encourage a broad range of applications by making the application process accessible to small, niche carbon capture companies as well as the giants of the energy industry. Regardless of whether they were experienced or novice GIS users, applicants could visualise sites on the ArcGIS web app, find pertinent data about the seabed and historic activity, and assess the potential of the licence areas. “We were genuinely delighted by the number and quality of applications that we received and the breadth of organisations that these bids came from,” says Nick Richardson, Head of Exploration & New Ventures at NSTA.

Lower cost to market for successful bidders
By using ArcGIS Hub technology and an ArcGIS web app to share information that is already available, NSTA is reducing costs for the successful bidders. There are 60+ years of subsurface surveys in its National Data Repository, originally conducted for the oil and gas industry, that can be reused to support the nascent carbon capture industry. Sharing data with ArcGIS in this way has the potential to reduce the cost to market for carbon storage quite significantly, as organisations do not have to go out and repeat the same initial geological surveys.

A proven approach for future licensing rounds
NSTA’s ArcGIS-based approach to transforming access to information has captured international attention, and the organisation was presented with a Special Achievement in GIS award at the Esri User Conference in San Diego in 2024. “We have created a process with ArcGIS that is adaptable to accommodate different user needs and that is malleable to future requirements,” says Tanya Knowles, Head of Digital Services at NSTA. “We will now use this process as the basis for a future process that will be even more sophisticated and robust.”