CAPACITY AND AVAILABILITY PAYMENTS

Capacity and availability payments pay an operator to keep a defined capability ready for use, even when it is not producing removals. For CDR, contracts can preserve removal plants, reserve clean energy or sustainable feedstock, keep transport and storage capacity open, or retain specialist equipment and teams. A fixed payment covers readiness. A separate payment normally covers removals delivered when capacity is called. This is useful where valuable capability might close, be diverted to other markets or remain unbuilt because future demand is uncertain. Procurement buys scheduled tonnes. This lever buys the option to obtain them when needed.

Capacity payments make sense when keeping a facility ready offers better value than buying removals on a fixed schedule. Eligible operators should control a working removal facility or CO₂ transport and storage system, with the permits and supplies needed to run it. Contracts should state how many net tonnes the capacity can support, how quickly it must respond, how readiness will be tested, how long payments continue and what happens if the operator fails. Other subsidies should be deducted to prevent double payment. Readiness alone creates no removal. Credits arise only after carbon has been removed and durably stored.

Availability revenue can prevent useful facilities, storage connections, supply contracts and specialist teams from disappearing during a demand gap. It can reserve capacity against missed targets or project failure, and support shared infrastructure before regular users cover its fixed costs. Contracts can keep switchable assets, such as biochar production or capture units attached to energy and waste facilities, available for CDR rather than alternative uses. Competitive awards can reveal the price of preserving that option, but no operational CDR programme has yet demonstrated these outcomes.

Governments or buyers may pay for capacity that exists only on paper, cannot secure clean energy, sustainable feedstock or storage, or would have remained available anyway. Overly broad contracts may subsidise ordinary energy, waste or product markets rather than CDR. Long awards can preserve obsolete assets, tie up scarce inputs and duplicate other support. If activation is unlikely or testing is weak, money may maintain idle equipment and teams without producing removals.

Programme authorities should compare contracted capacity with the amount that passes tests, responds when called and ultimately delivers verified removals. Reporting should cover payments, failures, penalties, access to inputs and infrastructure, overlapping support and the cost of obtaining removals elsewhere. Persistent unavailability, unused reserves, declining need or cheaper alternatives should reduce volumes, tighten tests or end contracts.

CDR developers, energy and feedstock suppliers, transport and storage operators, equipment makers and workforce bodies should map which capabilities may disappear and what would keep them ready. Engineers and lifecycle experts can design tests. Buyers, lenders and regulators should shape contract terms, while communities and civil society assess environmental limits, competing uses and public value.

International funds and supranational institutions can reserve cross-border or shared infrastructure capacity. National and regional governments can run strategic programmes across removal methods, energy, transport, storage and supply chains. Cities can contract capacity linked to waste, district heating or local biochar systems. Companies and industry groups can reserve future supplier or storage capacity, while philanthropy can protect small, early capabilities until public or commercial demand develops. Higher levels are best placed to coordinate networks and scarce inputs. Smaller actors can protect specific facilities or services. Every payer needs a durable budget, measurable obligations and power to enforce the contract.