The goal of the Swedish demo site of the CORALIS project in Frovi is to make a 10-hectare greenhouse operational while supplied by waste heat and carbon dioxide (CO2) from a nearby industry, thus demonstrating the power of industrial symbiosis in replacing fossil fuels which have been commonly used in greenhouses so far. In addition, the demo site is meant to demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) to enable the recovery of CO2 from flue gases of the anchor industry to supply the greenhouse with the necessary CO2 for plant enrichment in tomato production. Together with greenhouse gas emissions reduction, the project has the potential to generate job positions in the context of this symbiotic environment, while at the same time enhance self-sufficiency in Sweden’s food production, which is currently estimated to be around 50%, compared to the 80% in the neighbouring country Finland. 

When the CORALIS project took off in October 2020, the initial location of the project was the Höganäs Municipality with an anchor industry frοm the iron and steel sector. However, in the autumn of 2021, the project needed to move to a new location, Frövi, a locality belonging to the Lindesberg Municipality, due to several municipality permissions challenges experienced in Höganäs. The new anchor industry for the supply of heat and CO2 is from the pulp and paper sector and the demonstration activities have thus been successfully progressing in Frovi since the beginning of 2022. 

The project has now completed more than two and a half years of implementation, with some significant milestones worth reflecting upon. Firstly, a set of user requirements iterations for a reduced order model of the Frövi Demo have been done, which will be used as input for the virtual platform developed within the project as well. Additionally, a dynamic systems model of the demo site is being developed based on user requirements to further support symbiosis development and is being integrated with more detailed models, such as a generalised greenhouse model, and flowsheet simulations for CO2 capture processes. What is more, the design, engineering and adaptation of the CCU and the waste heat recovery system has been successfully completed and delivered, indicating that while the business case for the waste heat recovery seemed to be further strengthened, the demonstration of CCU proves to be technically and economically inviable. As a consequence, the relevant project partners are working on a proposition to continue exploring the conditions under which the CCU from the pulp and paper industry could become technically and economically viable. In general terms, this proposal includes additional measurements of the flue gas source, tests with membrane technology, and with experiments in tomato plants, plus additional exploration of other relevant CO2 sources coming from industrial symbiosis in other relevant industries. 

After all relevant agreements with the involved partners had been arranged, land preparation begun in September 2022. The installation and commissioning procedures are bound to continue throughout 2023, with the purchase and installation of the heat recovery system as well as the construction of the greenhouse until the end of the year.  

The real demonstration and monitoring of the system, as well as the technoeconomic assessment of the Frövi case for integration have not yet started, and are expected to begin after the installation of the heat recovery system, expected for early 2024. Future opportunities for the industrial symbiosis landscape that is being built in Frövi will also be investigated, focusing on waste valorization, using the system model that is being developed, along with knowledge yielded from other parts of the project as well in order to economically assess potential future pathways for developing new resource efficient and symbiotic solutions in Frövi. These future opportunities for waste valorization are currently being explored to continue the work from CORALIS.