OWS wants to commercialize a biological process that converts CO2 and H2 (after electrolysis of renewable electricity) to CH4 (main component in natural gas). Lab and pilot tests have been and are being conducted and show promising results. A next step in the development is creating a sound business model for further commercialization, and the construction of a first plant at full-scale for further optimization and demonstration purposes to potential clients. As renewable energy sources are gaining more ground in the electricity mix in Europe, imbalance problems on the electricity grid will increase in frequency. The proposed concept offers a solution to this imbalance problem by converting excess electricity via hydrolysis to H2 and using (waste) CO2 to CH4 that can be injected into the gas grid. The advantage of the proposed system is the small scale (< 10 MWe), so the conversion can be done near the production sites. When there is an excess of renewable electricity, fees are paid to the operators of renewable electricity for not producing, thus avoiding grid imbalance. Although this approach is understandable from a balancing perspective, it is contradictory to a sustainable approach and in conflict with the existing renewable energy targets. Therefore, producers of renewable electricity are a first important target group for our technology. CO2-intensive industries are a second important target group. By recycling their waste CO2, they become more sustainable, and it can generate extra revenues from buffering activities. During the feasibility study, OWS wants to elaborate a sound business plan for further development of the technology. It should result in a clear vision on technical, economic and legal issues. The final goal is to build a first full-scale demonstration plant in phase 2, which can serve as a test facility for further optimization (technical/biological), but also as a demonstration plant for potential customers.

The project NEEDbioWash aims to develop and demonstrate the production of an organic, GMO-free enzyme product by solid state fermentation (SSF) which can boost the washing performance of eco-certified laundry products significantly. It is well-known that enzymes can considerably increase the washing performance as they can degrade stains, which are not removed by surfactants. However, conventional enzymes are not allowed in eco-certified laundry detergents due to the use of GMOs during the production process. The innovative idea of NEEDbioWash consists in using the solid state fermentation technique to avoid the need of genetical modification to enhance productivity. The market of organic food and non-food merchandise is growing rapidly, both in the European and the global market growth rates of up to 20% are to observe. This is due the raising awareness of the customers to more healthy products, more responsible use of resources, better working conditions, fair traded goods and animal welfare. In organic-labelled products ingredients produced from or by GMO are strictly forbidden, as the influence of GMO on the human health and the environment are not yet satisfyingly investigated. Organic products aim to be produced as natural as possible, including the used raw materials. We are convinced that it is time to provide conscious customers also an environment-friendly laundry detergent product which is entirely natural and has still outstanding washing performance, as people nowadays have – also in the organic community – no time to care about dirty laundry. This is as well the outcome of SME instrument phase 1 project SSFENZYMES (GA: 740224) finished in May 2017 where a huge market potential for NEEDbioWash within Europe as well as world-wide was confirmed.

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.