Assessing relative importance and mutual influence of barriers for CCS deployment of the ROAD project using AHP and DEMATEL methods

• We applied AHP and DEMATEL methods to assess CCS barriers in the ROAD project.
• Current studies assess barriers as independent factors.
• CCS barriers are highly interdependent.
• Economic factors are the most important barriers hampering CCS projects.
• Policy recommendations should consider how barriers influence each other.

Several carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects around the world were cancelled, delayed or are on hold due to different types of barriers, such as: economic, legal, social and technical. Previous works treat these barriers as independent factors, ignoring potential interactions and possibly providing wrong information. This paper presents the findings of a survey in which experts evaluate the main barriers hampering the deployment of the ROAD project, in the Netherlands. Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) methods, we have concluded that: (i) CCS barriers are highly interconnected; (ii) “CO2 price” and “financial incentives” are the most important barriers and should be priorities for investments; (iii) “CO2 price” highly influences other barriers; (iv) “financial incentives” is very much influenced by them; (v) policy recommendations should take into consideration how these barriers influence each other. Our study recommends caution to policy-makers using the results from previous works, once that they may not reproduce correctly the ranking of the barriers, which may lead to incorrect analysis and conclusions.