Accompanying document to Deliverable 1.2 - Operational demo cases
Creators: name: A. Kleyböcker, C. Bruni
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2022
Subjects: Circular Economy, Industrial Symbiosis, Water Recovery, Water Reuse, Water Recycling, Technologies, Demonstrator, Demo Cases

description: The European industry is the largest water consuming sector after agriculture, with a significantly larger water footprint than residential/urban areas. They also face a fierce competition worldwide, with limited domestic resources. Moving to a circular economy (CE) paradigm that valorises a wide range of water-embedded resources: water, energy, nutrients and high added-value compounds, will future-proof European industries, climate-proof European society and safeguard the environment. Water Smart Industrial Symbiosis (WSIS) as a particular form of CE applicable to industrial contexts promises a new potential by systematically looking to reuse wastes between industries as raw materials. WSIS promises benefits from lower costs as well as new types of revenues, exploiting ‘waste’ management not only as a legal obligation but as a new business opportunity. WSIS is a novel approach with as of yet limited applications. In ULTIMATE, WSIS between the industrial sector and service providers of the water sector are demonstrated at significant scales thus creating an evidence-based approach for successful WSIS implementation anchored on real-world cases. Therefore, at nine case studies distributed across Europe and Israel, the ULTIMATE consortium has established so called WSISs. They develop and demonstrate 21 pilot plants, which recover water, materials and/or energy. Deliverable D1.2 is a demonstrator type deliverable and shall show, that the ULTIMATE pilot plants are operational. Therefore, presentations showing the operational pilot plants will be accessible on the ULTIMATE webpage at the case study section (https://ultimatewater.eu/demonstration-cases/). This document accompanies the presentations which are meant to be the main evidence for D1.2 and shows the progress until M24. Prior to the pilot plant implementation, eight WSISs conduct laboratory experiments. In total, 15 different laboratory experiments and/or investigations of already existing facilities are accomplished to better understand the circumstances of the real environment and to learn more about the type of technology before it is up-scaled from laboratory to pilot scale. Seven of the 15 investigations are already completed and seven are close to be completed (75-90%). Until M24, five pilot plants or (parts of) treatment trains were operational. Three of them are related to water recovery at the case studies in Nafplio (CS4), Lleida (CS5) and Kalundborg (CS9). One of them is related to material recovery in Lleida (CS5) and the last one is related to energy recovery in Karmiel (CS6). Until M27, ten additional plants are expected to be operational. Most of them are quite close to be constructed with a progress between 70% and 100% such as the material recovery unit in Rosignano (CS3), final parts of the water recovery treatment train in Lleida (CS5), two energy recovery units in Lleida (CS5) and one energy recovery unit in Shafdan (CS6). Even though the progress is only at 25% in Tarragona (CS1), the case study leader expects the two pilot plants for water recovery to be operational until M27 as for the pilot plants in Tain (CS7) dealing with water, nutrient and energy recovery and reuse. Until M30, the last six pilot plants shall be operational according to the case study leaders. One of the six pilot plants recovers water, one recovers energy and the other four recovery different materials. Especially for those six pilot plants, the contingency plan is to extend and intensify the laboratory and preparatory experiments to gain more important data and experience in depth that suggest to accelerate and to shorten the start-up and optimisation phase of the pilot plants. Even though all case study leaders still expect to complete their pilot test within the project life time of 48 months, time is becoming a critical factor as sufficient time is required to gain experience from the pilots and translate this into best practices for WSIS implementation. Until all pilot plants will be operational, a very close monitoring of the case studies will be done by the WP1 management team with the case study leaders and the risk officer via regularly meetings. In addition, the presentations referring to D1.2 will be updated every three months until every pilot plant will be operational. D1.2 is the basis for the demonstration of the ULTIMATE solutions and for the generation of valuable data. Those data will be needed for the technology evidence base (D1.7), for the best practice guidelines (D1.3, D1.4, and D1.5) and also for the assessments of our circular economy solutions (D2.3 and D2.5). Those results will contribute to find suitable strategies for the replication of our concepts and thus, be the basis for the overall exploitation strategy (D5.9). Hence, the EU-added value of this deliverable is its contribution to crucial deliverables that will foster and boost circular economy solutions in the European industry and the water sector. The collection and open access presentation of the technologies in the technology evidence base (D1.7) will support decision makers and investors to gain a fast overview of the opportunities and proven concepts of circular economy. Together with the Marketplace (D5.5), the technology evidence base can significantly contribute to the transition from a linear to a circular economy in Europe. ULTIMATE promotes circular economy solutions that are in line with the ambitions of the European Green Deal (European Commission 2019) its Action Plan for Circular Economy (European Commission 2020) to reduce strongly our greenhouse gas emissions, to provide clean water, to maintain healthy soil, make industry resilient and produce cleaner energy. This deliverable (D1.2) presents technologies that can be applied in the frame of the Regulation (EU) 2020/741 on minimum requirements for water reuse, the Regulation (EU) 2019/1009 laying down rules on the making available on the market of EU fertilising products and the Directive (EU) 2018/2001 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources.