Empa Debuts Move-MEGA Plant Converting Sunlight and Air to Gas

• Empa’s Move-MEGA pilot turns solar hydrogen and captured CO₂ into grid-ready synthetic methane, showcasing flexible power-to-gas and negative-emissions potential.

Swiss research hub Empa has switched on its Move-MEGA pilot plant in Dübendorf, unveiling a home-grown process that turns renewable electricity and captured CO₂ into pipeline-grade synthetic methane — a potential drop-in replacement for fossil natural gas. The facility was officially inaugurated on 16 June 2025, capping five years of lab-to-field development of sorption-enhanced methanation (SEM), the core technology behind the scheme.

Move-MEGA integrates the entire value chain on one site. Solar-powered electrolysers split water to make hydrogen; a direct-air-capture rig supplies purified CO₂; and twin SEM reactors fuse the gases into CH₄ while zeolite pellets inside the catalyst bed soak up by-product water. Removing the water in-situ shifts the chemical equilibrium, allowing the reaction to run at lower temperatures and pressures and to ramp quickly with the ups and downs of sun or wind output. 

The methane that rolls out of the skid is pure enough to be injected straight into Switzerland’s gas network or dispensed at Empa’s on-site mobility demonstrator, where trucks already run on climate-neutral fuels. Project lead Florian Kiefer says the flexible setup “unlocks seasonal storage of surplus renewables without the expensive clean-up steps conventional methanation needs.” 

Backers range from the ETH Board and the Canton of Zurich to utilities such as Glattwerk and retail giants Migros and Lidl, all keen to test drop-in green gas at commercial scale. In future phases, the team plans to bolt on a methane-pyrolysis module that would split the synthetic gas into hydrogen and solid carbon, opening a route to negative-emissions energy once the carbon is locked into building materials. 

Although the current plant is pilot-sized, its designers argue the modular SEM concept can be scaled rapidly and sited wherever curtailed renewables and a CO₂ source coincide. Empa will run the demonstrator through a multi-year test campaign, feeding performance data into ongoing techno-economic studies that aim to guide Switzerland’s push for 100 % renewable gas by mid-century.