Lighthouse: Frövi

Frövi, Sweden

Main drivers to join the project

  • For the anchor industry, to increase resource efficiency and lessens environmental impact and as a niche market leader, to obtain front-runner advantage

  • For WA3RM to develop, design, build, finance and asset manage its first industrial symbiosis project, demonstrating the use of residual heat and investigating alternatives to replace CO2, increasing positive impact to people and planet, while ensuring a profitable business for all parties involved.

  • For the tomato producer, the ability to deploy large-scale production facilities without a big financial risk or climate footprint. Reduced operational costs through the replacement of fossil fuels by waste heat, and the possibility to explore alternative sources of CO2

  • For the Municipality to contribute to increased circularity and self-sufficiency while creating many new jobs and future-proof local businesses.

  • To showcase profitable symbiosis to facilitate dissemination

Sectors involved

  • Pulp and paper

  • Horticulture

  • Energy

Stakeholders

  • Industrial area promoter/coordinator: WA3RM AB

  • Number of companies: 7

  • Number of employees: Over 1500

  • Other stakeholders: Lindesbergs Municipality

Resources

  • Energy source: Biomass

  • Value: 2,5 TWh/year

  • Energy source: Recycled waste heat

  • Value: 50 GWh/year

Annual energy use

GWh/year

Overall concept of the demonstration activities to be implemented

The pilot will demonstrate the utilisation of low-grade waste heat and will explore CO2 capture and utilization from different sources

The pilot will demonstrate the low-grade waste heat in the Regenergy Frövi symbiosis network. CO2 capture from flue gas streams from the pulp and paper production facility will be explored.

Heat from the pulp and paper industry will be used in a nearby greenhouse, to be constructed during the project. The CO2 exploration will lead to increased understanding of the usability of flue gases from pulp and paper industry as a source for Carbon Capture and Utilization, to use the CO2 in a greenhouse application for plant enrichment.

Adjacent to the greenhouse, the plan was to build an aquaculture farm, with facilities to recycle waste nutrients to the greenhouse and benefit as well from residual heat, which was to be assessed during the project execution. This plan proved to be unpracticable in Frövi, due to potential negative environmental impacts of the project to the local lake, and the current affected state of the lake, that could in turn compromise the production.

The pilot will also test the upgrade of the CO2-source stream to the quality required by potential uses other than the greenhouse (algae cultivation, power to X technologies,  etc) with the objective of scaling-up the installed facilities and finding new alternatives for the symbiotic use of captured CO2. Finally, a valorisation analysis of sludges coming from Billerud will be also performed in order to support future IS initiatives in the industrial area.

11%

Energy efficiency

23%

Energy intensity

50%

CO2 emissions

100%

Food production

Description of the demonstration readiness level towards Industrial Symbiosis (IS)

  • Legal dimension: Readiness to close deal. A business structure is in place, with the ‘special purpose vehicle’ Regenergy Frövi AB (RFAB) to house the infrastructure, attract investment and act as the legal interface for business arrangements between parties. Draft legal agreements have been produced, as well as a template for the investment memorandum, complete with full 20-year model of Profit and   Loss, balance sheet and cash flow for three business entities: WA3RM AB, RFAB, and the greenhouse.

  • Economic dimension: Readiness to invest. To enable investment from long-term, sustainable capital, the necessary infrastructure has been separated into a special purpose entity, named Regenergy Frövi AB. The infrastructure is rented out to the operator under conditions typical for business-to-business real estate development. In parallel, an investment fund has been established to attract and collect capital. The fund has approved Regenergy Frövi AB for investment.

    Previously to the CORALIS project, the European Investment Bank (EIB) reviewed and approved the concept for funding of a portfolio of 10 projects.

  • Social dimension: Readiness to collaborate. A guiding principle for the collaboration is that all parties have an economic incentive to collaborate, according to the three pillars of sustainability (environment, society, economy). A scorecard based on the UN’s sustainable development goals has been developed to show the project’s contribution to all three of these. A driving force behind the collaboration is the existence of a symbiosis agent – WA3RM AB. WA3RM makes a business of creating industrial symbiosis.

  • Technical and spatial dimensions: The conceptual model for heat recycling to greenhouses was developed by the Energy Division of the European Spallation Source (ESS), from which WA3RM AB is a spinoff. The technical challenge is to improve the readiness level for the system as a unit.

    The nature of the ‘regenerative’ industries, particularly the greenhouse, is that they require significant space.

    The preferred location is the closest available lot, owned by Lindesberg municipality. However, the selected site is reserved for commercial activities. To allow the project development, this must change to industrial activities. The process of changing the plan is regulated in Swedish Planning and Building Law. This process must precede the actual building permit.

Main challenges to be addressed and barriers to be overcome

The grand challenge to be addressed is the decarbonisation of food production by valorisation of waste streams. Specifically, for recycling heat and CO2, the main challenges are:

  • Capture, separation, and distribution of CO2, including balancing supply and need over time
  • Integration of recycling systems for heat and CO2 for resource efficiency
  • Business models for use of CO2

These innovations do not require new technology to be developed. Rather, it is a question of new applications of technology and of system optimization.

The need to use low-grade heat arises from the previous sale of all higher-grade heat to district heat, which is a widespread practice in Sweden. To achieve the required capacity, the heat recycling must be designed for a 45-55°C supply and 25°C return. This is achieved by adding ventilation heat to the standard radiative heat, thus adding more area for radiative heat. To use the CO2 from the pulp and paper plant, harmful substances must be removed, notably NOx (harmful to plants) and CO (harmful to humans), and unknown substances need to be identified and analysed. N2 and water vapor hinder pressurized storage for daily balancing so, both must be removed. Several suppliers of separation technology have offered systems for separation which all technologies are evaluated.  For the project, the main modification is both the continued analysis of technical and economic viability of different solutions for providing the greenhouse with CO2 through CCU from flue gases, and to guarantee that the correlating solution meets safety standards for workers and plants in the greenhouse, besides lessening costs and environmental impacts.

Equipment to be installed, modifications required and relevant activities for each stakeholder involved

WA3RM AB

IS facilitator Project management engineering design, integration and permitting, Resource databasing, matching algorithms and web interfaces;

RISE

Development, evaluation, integration, assessment of impacts related to the project, symbiosis development, replication, development of net zero emission iron/steel industry

LiU

Assistance to the evaluation of environmental-, business-, and socio-economic impacts of the pilot, including: their impacts within individual contexts; strengths and weaknesses across different contexts; and good practices to be replicated.

Other stakeholders

  • Regenergy Frövi AB, WA3RM LTP, infrastructure SPV (WA3RM subsidiary): Manage installation of the heat recycling system, the electrical grid, and the greenhouse infrastructure and related systems.

  • Lindesberg Municipality: Responsible for stakeholder engagement, facilitate interaction between the project partners and the local community and the region of Örebro.

  • Linde Energi: The local energy company responsible for the grid connections.

Targets of the overall IS demonstrator

The overall goal is to demonstrate sustainable paths to reduce climate impacts and reuse of waste and beyond for the pulp and paper industry. The pilot will exhibit how using waste heat and exploring CO2 is a step change in circularity for industry and can provide important quick gains in carbon reductions.

For the food production, using the symbiotic system eliminates the main sources of scope 1 greenhouse emissions.

Altogether, this means that this project moves industrial-scale circularity from promise to practice.