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Frontier buyers will pay Phlair $30.6 million to remove 47,000 tons of CO₂ between 2027 and 2030. This offtake will support Phlair’s first commercial-scale DAC facility in Alberta, Canada. Frontier buyers were Phlair’s first customers in September 2023 through a small prepurchase of 275 tons and are now the company’s first offtakers. Since that first purchase, Phlair has progressed from a lab-scale system to its first outdoor pilot, hired a stellar team, and secured CO₂ storage and energy partners crucial to their growth.\n\n### Addressing DAC’s Achilles’ heel\n\nDAC has many benefits: it removes CO₂ durably, doesn’t take up much land to operate and it is straightforward to measure how much CO₂ has actually been removed. DAC’s main drawback is cost, which is driven by two main factors:\n\n1. The amount of energy required to power the process\n1. The costs of building a DAC plant\n\nPhlair is tackling both of these challenges by developing an all-electric design that has the potential to be highly energy efficient, with a goal of requiring less than 1.5 MWh/tCO₂—about 1.3x lower than the average of other electricity-intensive CDR approaches. This would amount to a ~$15/tCO₂ cost saving, which is a considerable portion of the $100/tCO₂ long-term CDR target. The efficiency comes from Phlair's hydrogen-looping electrolyzer that uses electrochemistry to capture and release CO₂, without having to heat the capture material. By driving the reactions electrochemically rather than thermochemically, this approach significantly improves energy efficiency (by not having to heat and cool parts of the system that don’t actually catch CO₂) and reduces energy costs.\n\nAnother way Phlair minimizes energy cost is by designing its system to adjust its energy usage based on the availability and cost of renewable power. When there is plenty of sunlight and solar power is cheapest, Phlair can run the end-to-end system continuously and bank overproduced capture and release liquids in holding tanks. When the sun sets or when electricity prices are high, Phlair can shut down the energy-intensive electrolyzer and continue operating the CO₂ capture and release steps, using the liquid stored in the holding tanks. This design allows the liquid holding tanks to effectively serve as substitutes for batteries. As a result, the system can operate with over 95% uptime without having to pay the premium rates of 24/7 renewable energy. Instead, Phlair will be one of the first companies to deploy behind-the-meter solar power for DAC. By installing solar panels directly on-site, it can supply low-carbon additional energy for its operations, minimizing the hassle of having to connect to the electric grid. \n\nBecause Phlair’s technology draws from existing electrochemical industrial systems, like commercial electrolyzers and fuel cells, the company is able to tap into existing supply chains and materials, significantly lowering upfront costs. Additionally, Phlair’s modular design allows for the production of standardized units, similar to solar panels. This approach lowers manufacturing costs and enables project developers to build their DAC system in stages, reducing upfront expenses.\n\n![Phlair’s method of removing CO₂ from the atmosphere.](/images/phlair/diagram.png)\nPhlair’s method of removing CO₂ from the atmosphere. {% .caption %}\n\n### Measuring net energy use (when there’s a good deal of energy involved)\n\nSome carbon removal approaches—DAC in particular—can require a good deal of energy. This raises questions about whether the approach removes carbon on net, or whether it takes away clean energy from decarbonization efforts more broadly. To address these concerns, we put together a set of [principles](/assets/clean-energy-procurement-principles.pdf) to help suppliers choose the best possible sources of energy for their operation. Additionally, through our partnership with WattTime, which anal

1yzes electricity usage for real-time, marginal grid emissions data, Frontier will provide the data required to make better energy choices to its portfolio companies.\n\nFrontier has facilitated purchases on behalf of Frontier Founding Members Stripe, Google, Shopify, and McKinsey Sustainability, as well as Autodesk, H&M Group, Workday, and Salesforce. Also, Aledade, Canva, Match Group, Samsara, SKIMS, Skyscanner, Wise, and Zendesk have purchased via Watershed's partnership with Frontier.\n\n**Malte Feucht, Cofounder and CEO, Phlair**: “This offtake unlocks and drives down the cost of our supply chain, accelerating Phlair's scale-up by several years. I am particularly excited about Project Dawn - the world’s first DAC facility powered by behind-the-meter solar. Our unique edge in energy procurement and access to cheap electricity enables us to demonstrate low-cost DAC to our forward-leaning group of customers.”\n\n**Hannah Bebbington, Head of Deployment, Frontier**: “Direct air capture’s energy intensity doesn’t have to be a deal-breaker for DAC to scale to gigaton-level. Phlair’s combination of swapping heat for electrochemistry as well as its flexible energy management process shows one path to building energy-efficient DAC systems.”\n\n\xb9 assuming a $40/MWh electricity price {% .footnote %}\n"),d=i.ZP.parse(c,{slots:!0}),p=d.attributes.frontmatter?r.ZP.load(d.attributes.frontmatter):{},{components:u}=(0,o.J)(h);var m=!0;let f={frontmatter:p};function g(e){let t=e.markdoc;return i.RZ.react(t.content,n,{components:{...u,...e.components}})}}},function(e){e.O(0,[6130,2649,8391,4321,2222,3061,608,4908,3303,8036,951,3211,2645,2591,2888,9774,179],function(){return e(e.s=30347)}),_N_E=e.O()}]);