RE-WISE is a European partnership project financed by EACI (European Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation) within the context IEE (Intelligent Energy - Europe) stemming from atechnology property of Ecofast Italia. S.r.l. (sistema SI.QU.R.O.)

The Re-WISE purpose is the promotion of a integrated system for the decentralised production of electricity and heat from biogas from food waste, made with the massive use of domestic food waste disposers of second generation, able to quantify the waste introduced into the sewerage system. By using this infrastructure as a means of transport for the ground food waste, it is possible to increase, in a substantial way, the production of biogas in the depuration plants equipped with anaerobic treatment of secondary sludge, in a codigestion process of the two different substrata.

• increase in the production of biogas controlled and managed through the monitoring system of the organic masses brought there
• reduction in the emission of CO2 originating in the traditional collection of solid organic waste
• reduction of costs of collection, transport, separation and other operations for treating waste
• cost savings associated to collection, transportation, source separation and other waste management practices
• establishment of a win-win opportunity for citizens, municipalities and service providers

Project coordinator:

• D'Appolonia S.p.A.
  Via San Nazaro, 19 Genova
  Tel: +39 010 3628148

Partners:

• Ecofast Italia S.r.l. - Tecnologie Ambientali, Italy
• Queen's University of Belfast, United Kingdom
• ACCIONA Infraestructuras SA, Spain
• Indesit Company S.p.A.
• Universitat de Barcelona, Spain

• the biogas is produced through anaerobic co-digestion of organic food waste in district wastewater treatment plants equipped with a primary clarifier and a sludge digestor
• the organic food waste is conveyed to the district wastewater treatment plant through the existing built environment such as the drain and sewerage systems after having been ground by food waste disposers

Promotion of the setting up of Sustainable Energy Communities (SEC) consciously adopting the proposed practice

Promotion of the new integrated practice wherever organisational infrastructural, socio-economic and geographical conditions render this model favourable than other waste management practices.

Main steps to implement the project

• Education and dissemination actions targeting all levels of decision-making (from social to political/administrative level) to be carried out at local, regional, and national dimensions
• Identification of potential national lead markets taking up of the proposed scheme into showcases
• Identification of SECs in national lead markets characterised by the most favourable organisational, infrastructural, social economic, financial conditions towards the take up of the proposed integrated practice and business scheme
• Establishment of knowledge-based discussions at institutional, political and local administrative level facussed to the quantified demonstration of the Community (as well as SEC) added value related to the business model in terms of energy, mass and also economic flows in specific SECs typologies
• Establishment of knowledge-based discussions with relevant stakeholders focussed to the quantified demonstration of the win-win opportunity and the new generation of revenues resulting from the implementation of the proposed business scheme, by means of the same documented instruments as specified above
• Establishment of a business framework involving all relevant stakeholders and authorities playing a role in the decision-making process towards the development of suitable organizational schemes at SEC level
• Establishment of a new financial mechanism or business model, where each stakeholder playing a role in the supply chain (citizens and small industrial sites, municipalities, service providers in wastewater management, private stakeholders) is rewarded through pay-back returns justifying investments

Expected results

The implementation of the proposed model would lead to:

• important increase in biogas production in the existing WWTPs equipped with anaerobic digesters
• reductions in CO2 emissions associated to the reduced frequency collection of MSW
• cost savings associated to collection, transportation, sorce separation and other waste management practices and opportunity to invoice a new food waste management service thanks to the food waste disposers of second generation, able to quantify the food waste introduced into the sewerage system
• establishment of a win-win opportunity for citizens (through a sustainable tariff paid on the base of the organic food waste effectively dispose through the sewerage system) municipalities (through cost savings associated to waste management practices) as well as service providers (through financial incomes associated to the increased biogas volumes and the performance of a new service).

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