The objective of the project "Research Coordination for a Low-Cost Biomethane Production at Small and Medium Scale Applications", short Record Biomap, is to establish the most promising innovative process and technology solutions along the biomethane supply chain, from raw material/residues, substrate pre-treatment, digestion, gas conditioning/digestate further utilisation and digestate/fertilizer deployment for a cost and energy sufficient biomethane production and to support their development up to market uptake. To bridge the gap between research and market, a biomethane platform will be established to support the dissemination and exploitation of the knowledge ascertained in the project to the industry sector, the end users and other important stakeholders, and therefore to foster the use of research outcomes. An R&D strategy will lead the way forward into new project concepts. Answering to the scope of LCE 19-2014/2015 of the call of Competitive Low-Carbon Energy in the Horizon2020 work program, the wider goal of Record Biomap will be to accelerate innovation in small to medium scale biomethane production and therefore shorten the time to market of technology solutions which currently have the technical readiness level (TRL) of 3 to 5. The objectives of Record Biomap can be summarised as following: - Accelerate innovation and creation of an European market for small to medium scale biomethane supply through innovative technology and process solutions - Continuous R&D monitoring to bridge the gap between independent technology developers - Continuous knowledge transfer from science to market and policy decision makers and vice verca through building up a biomethane platform for intensive networking - Identification of different sources of private and public financing and bringing together of relevant stakeholders for a continuative development of a more cost and and energy efficient biomethane production at small to medium scale applications.

The EU27 annually generates 90 million tonnes of food waste, with a 39% generated in the manufacturing processes. The food processing industry critically needs sustainable solutions for waste valorisation and re-use. Our Proposition: DRALOD, a disruptive replicable drying process 100% environmentally-friendly and extremely cost-effective: - Environmentally: DRALOD uses renewables only, to allow valorisation of plant-origin waste into highly valuable functional ingredients as demanded by the nutraceutical and pharmaceutical industry. - Cost-effectiveness: DRALOD drying plant has a pay-back period shorter than 6 years for an average plant with 35,000 tonnes/year capacity. Our Assets: - Consortium´s technological background: The Coordinator (PERNIA) is experienced in solar drying plants with licensing rights on a leading solar heating technology. OKOTHERM is specialist in the development and manufacturing of innovative biomass heating systems since 1995, while RTDPs DFBZ and RISE bring world-class knowledge for implementation of energy recovery and smart control units for DRALOD combined solar-biomass drying system. - Industry-driven vision: PERNIA´s turnover is over €2.2million in 2017, with a net profit increase growth of 32% with respect to 2016, operating in solar drying for BSG valorisation, evidencing a high potential. Target market: The generated volume of high-water content waste from plant-origin food processing, leads to an SAM estimated at €1,395 million in 2024. Business model: Commissioning of DRALOD drying plants under a franchise business model, designed to overcome the up-front investment barriers by lowering our customers´ required initial investment in 30%. Commercialisation strategy: The Brewery sector is our beachhead market. We currently work for the largest Spanish Brewery group. Our follow-on markets will include wineries, fruit juice and the olive oil sectors. Financial projections: 44 million € and 80 new direct jobs by 2024.

Inland communities in arid zones of the MENA-Region are facing specific environmental and socio-economic problems. Many of these communities in this region are characterized by rural depopulation and urbanization. This means (i) higher specific costs in future to keep the infrastructure stable in the rural regions, (ii) the tendency to reduce investments into the rural structures, (iii) high needs for the infrastructure adaption in the suburbs, each in a perspective with high unemployment and labile economic situation. Consequences are also a depletion of rare fertile zones and water shortage aggravated due pollutions caused by illegal waste dumping and increased irrigated agricultural production. Special characteristics of these communities are the needs to access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. The communities are usually dependent on the centralized energy production and have no added value from new installed large scale solar power plants in Morocco and Tunisia inland zones. Waste management technologies and energy concepts developed in Europe are not suitable and too expensive for them. Overall objective of the proposed project is the systemic consideration of energy demand and energy production potential of smaller communities in arid inland zones in Morocco and Tunisia with the aim to transfer the results to similar communities in the MENA region. For two typical communities, sustainable and transferable energy concepts are developed, modelled and simulated. Thereby, the focus of the joint investigation is laid on the development of a closed, circular energy system with combined solar and –bioenergy using the available organic waste streams from private households, agriculture and industries. A modular energy concept will be created regarding the special situation of vulnerable communities in the Mediterranean region. Specific goals to be achieved are: (1) Analysis of the energetic and waste situation in selected inland communities in arid regions of Moroccoand Tunisia (2) Development, modelling and simulation of sound energy and waste management concepts for smallercommunities in arid inland zones (3) Environmental, economic and social validation of the developed energy and waste management concept (4) Exploitation of obtained technologies, concepts and tools to other communities in the MENA region. Main results of the collaborative research are modular sustainable energy concepts incorporated in a transferable decision tool for communities in the entire MENA region. This tool summarize technologies and allows to evaluate for the special local conditions and needs, which combination of technologies has the highest positive impact regarding energy supply, closed material cycles, water use, waste management/sanitation, social aspects as living conditions or job opportunities. The project implementation is characterized by an interdisciplinary and bottom-up approach. Next excellent and complementary academic and non-academic partners, a high participation of local stakeholders including communal governmental bodies, financing institutes, local industries, private households and informal waste collectors is foreseen. Besides technical aspects of waste collection, waste management and energy production, the environmental, economic and societal impacts of the developed concepts are measured. Doing so, exploitation of project results is not constrained in the formation of new founded operating companies in the selected communities, but leads to the multiplication of the entire concept to other, similar communities. The project contributes to communities’ awareness and capacity to protect own resources, environment and ecosystems and have tangible impacts on the sustainability and quality of life of the inland population. Finally it contributes to increase the share of renewable energies and doing so to reduce their dependency on energy imports in the MENA region.

Genencor International BV has recently developed a new enzyme product, C1-LC4, that in recent field trials has shown a promising 10% cost-reduction in the production of biogas from organic waste. Although the efficacy of the enzyme has clearly been shown, the current fermentation process does not provide sufficient yield in industrial production to be cost-effective for large-scale application. The objective of DEMETER is to increase the yield of this industrial fermentation process by at least 20%, improve the product recovery process by 40%, and reduce overall product cost by at least 15% while increasing the productivity of the process. In addition, DEMETER will demonstrate the efficacy of the enzyme in 8 field trials in biogas plants throughout Europe. The DEMETER consortium includes the entire value chain: enzyme producer Genencor International, enzyme retailer Miavit, the pilot plant BioBase Europe Pilot Plant, anaerobic digester expert OWS, independent biogas research centre DBFZ, Ciaotech for independent economic and environmental evaluation, and large farm, Biomoer, for field trials. DEMETER follows a multi-scale approach. First, the enzyme productivity will be improved on lab- and small pilot-scale, while obtaining insights for further scale-up. In parallel, the effect of enzymes on biogas yield will be quantified, using 5 commonly used biomass substrates. The improved fermentation and downstream process will be scaled up and demonstrated in a 15 000 L pilot plant. Finally, the improvement of the biogas production process due to the use of the C1-LC4 enzyme will be demonstrated in practice in 8 field trials. The results of these field trials will be fed back to further improve the production process and its yield. Ultimately, DEMETER will not only produce a fermentation process with increased yield, an improved product recovery process resulting in reduced production costs. The resulting product will lead to an increase in renewable biogas production in Europe.