Tag Archives: cast seaweed

Visit at Solrød Biogas

On the 15th of September representatives from Baltic Energy Innovation Centre (BEIC), Gdansk University of Technology (GUT) and Roskilde University (RUC) visited Solrød Biogas plant.

The visit started at the Solrød beach where Preben Larsen, board member of the Solrød beach cleaning team, was interviewed.

Visit

From left: Jörgen Held, BEIC, Karolina Kądziela, GUT and Mikkel Busck, project manager Solrød Biogas, at the Solrød beach waiting for Preben Larsen, Solrød beach cleaning team and Tyge Kjaer, RUC to show up.
Photo: Fredrik Rosengren

Then the visit continued at the Solrød Biogas plant, which is located approx. 4 km from the beach. Erik Lundsgaard from Bigadan, who is responsible for the operation of the Solrød Biogas plant, gave input to the COASTAL Biogas case study related to Solrød Biogas, and Mikkel Busck and Tyge Kjaer showed the facility.

Visit
Study tour at Solrød Biogas plant, currently the only facility in the Baltic Sea region which co-digests cast seaweed at industrial scale.
Photo: Fredrik Rosengren

The COASTAL Biogas team appreciates the nice and interesting study tour which was perfectly hosted by Mikkel Busck and supported by Tyge Kjaer.

COASTAL Biogas part of the CONTRA final conference

COASTAL Biogas and CONTRA are Interreg projects looking at cast seaweed and beach wrack as a resource. There is a regular exchange and collaboration between the projects.

COASTAL Biogas took part in the CONTRA final conference on the 1st of June. Click here to see the recorded presentation of COASTAL Biogas  – use of cast seaweed to mitigate eutrophication.

The conference documentation including downloadable presentations are available here.

Main take-aways – 4th COASTAL Biogas conference

The 4th COASTAL Biogas conference took place on the 9th of December as an online event.

Presentations
The presentations are online on the conference webpage. Just click on the title of the presentation you want to view.

Conference summary
Click here to download the conference summary.

Main take-aways
It is evident that there is a strong interest to use marine biomass as a resource and obtain different socio-economic benefits. However, the regulations and directives are not always adopted to such initiatives since they were introduced to solve other types of problems. Even if the regulations and directives do not pose a barrier for utilising marine biomass as a resource, stakeholders normally optimise their own businesses from an economic perspective rather than from an environmental perspective. There are a lot of socio-economic benefits related to the anaerobic digestion of cast seaweed and the utilisation of the digestate as an organic fertiliser, as part of the circular economy. However, if the biogas operator is not economically compensated for the reduced eutrophication, the elimination of greenhouse gas emissions from decaying seaweed, the improved water and soil quality, and compliance with different directives etc., the operator might look for other substrates that generate a higher methane yield. Therefore, it is important to take a holistic approach and convince stakeholders of the socio-economic benefits to avoid disadvantages for the environment.

COASTAL Biogas Steering Group Meeting and Conference, 12-14 November 2019, Roskilde, Denmark

The second COASTAL Biogas Conference was held on 13 and 14 November 2019 in Roskilde, Denmark. Prior to that, on 12 November, project partners met for the third Steering Group Meeting (SGM) to plan and discuss upcoming activities and further implementation of the project. At the beginning of the conference the critical eutrophication state of the Baltic Sea and possibilities to improve the situation were introduced in the keynote speech by a representative of HELCOM (Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission – Helsinki Commission). Subsequently, first results achieved in the COASTAL Biogas project were presented and partners from connected projects gave an insight into how they try to tackle the issue of cast seaweed. In the last session the regulations and management of digestate in Denmark, digestate processing options and policy work on digestate management of the European Biogas Association were made subject of discussion. The study tour on the next day led the participants to the beach at Køge Bay (see photo) and the Solrød biogas plant, where cast seaweed is already utilised as co-substrate for anaerobic digestion.

The date and venue of the next conference will be released very soon on this website.

Stay tuned and register for the COASTAL Biogas newsletter, which is distributed half yearly.


Photo: Anne Roßmann, FNR, 2019