FAQs
CORALIS is a project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme under the topic CE-SPIRE-01-2020 – Tapping into the potential of Industrial Symbiosis, which aims to create pathways for decarbonising resource and energy-intensive sector value chains by implementing viable Industrial Symbiosis approaches new business and management strategies with innovative technology-based enablers.
This whole approach will be demonstrated in three real industrial areas covering different sectors, geographical dimensions, and resources, improving the knowledge basis and laying the foundations for exploiting industrial Symbiosis’s potential in the EU process industry.
CORALIS will address the improvement of IT tools by the Virtual Assessment Platform. This tool will cover the gap of management between symbiosis activities from an operational perspective and keep in mind the forthcoming progress towards a Circular Economy.
CORALIS will demonstrate new solutions to current industrial challenges, such as alternative use for raw materials produced, high-water consumption, low product and by-product concentrations as well as high energy consumption and heat waste through the integration of innovative processes and the combination of efficient technologies enabling new symbiotic interactions.
CORALIS will provide a 3-pillar methodology composed by Technology-Economic-Management Readiness Levels to cover these three issues simultaneously in all activities involved in whole value chains across sectors. Collaboration with industries, networking and exchange of best practices will support the implementation of demonstrations.
CORALIS will thoroughly analyse the specific material flows, strengths and weaknesses, business cases and models for each Industrial Symbiosis cases involved in the project, connecting local stakeholders (process industries, other sectors, public sector, civil society and finance) at early stage of the project and in the implementation of future actions. Also, CORALIS will provide the demo cases with the tools and support to establish management and brokerage structures or develop existing structures to incubate the methodologies towards Industrial Symbiosis design. The development of Industrial Symbiosis business strategy towards symbiosis and circularity, incl. the CO2 abatement and climate neutrality goals in the Besides, mitigation measures to the implementation of actions will be developed within the regions and across regions.
CORALIS will implement Life Cycle Assessments to assess overall CO2 impact, including all elements that could improve the new CORALIS solutions’ environmental performance to test and deploy. Also, CORALIS will develop a harmonised accountability system (cradle-to-gate) to feed into the project’s demo cases and improve it and validate it as general recommendations at the end of the project. CORALIS will develop training material to contribute to new ways of cooperation with systems for vocational education and training. It will consider up-taking industry skills and qualification demands.
Most investments in methodologies and tools facilitating the update of Industrial Symbiosis have focused on assessing potential solutions synergies among individual companies and synergies among individual companies. But CORALIS will aim to unlock possible solutions to facilitate a more considerable market uptake among EU industrial areas.
The overall technological approach proposed by CORALIS will be presented and evaluated in 3 industrial areas acting as Lighthouses demonstrators in Escombreras (Spain), Höganäs (Sweden) and Brescia (Italy). Moreover, another 3 industrial areas will be applied as follower use cases in Basauri (Portugal), Linz (Austria) and Izmit (Turkey) in order to replicate the main outcome of the project by implementing additional IS initiatives after its completion.
The consortium’s energy efficiency will be improved by means of the adaption of current processes by more innovative and efficient ones that enable the symbiosis case and the recovery and exchange of waste heat among processes. Also, waste heat recovery approaches can be easily replicated among demonstrators, potentially contributing to improving the rest of the demonstrators beyond the project activities.
The demonstration of symbiotic relations will contribute to lower the required energy intensity for the processes involved in the symbiosis, as the reuse of waste energy and the utilisation of materials from geographically close sources will reduce not only the direct energy inputs (e.g. natural gas or electricity), but also indirect energy consumption associated to the extraction, treatment and transport of the raw materials.
The decrease of CO2 emissions will be achieved through CO2 exchange among processes, replacement of mineral and fossil feedstock, reduction of fossil fuel consumption by applying waste heat recovery and RES integration.
The technological solution proposed by CORALIS will enable waste and by-products recycling in combination with exchange between innovative processes in order to reduce the import of raw materials in the project’s demonstrators.
Waste generation will be handled by demonstrating solutions for their treatment and reintroduction in the value chain, which finally reduce both the environmental and economic impact of waste generation and the amount of virgin raw materials needs in the industrial processes.
Besides the environmental gains related to the reduced extraction of mineral materials and the reduced generation of industrial waste landfilling, the CORALIS project will reduce emissions of CO2 per year. CORALIS would achieve a 0,25% reduction in GHG emissions in the whole EU industry. Nevertheless, this represents an important step in the development of zero direct emissions industrial areas.
The overall project contributes to the implementation of the European Green Deal’s objectives, and more specifically to the policy areas of Clean energy, Climate action, and sustainable industry.
CORALIS also contributes to the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals, and more specifically to: SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), SDG 13 (Climate Action).
Industrial sectors involved in CORALIS demonstration activities include chemical, food, steel, foundry and aluminium sectors. Also, connection with local stakeholders from other sectors will be promoted. Integrated management systems to be used by demo cases, could be used by non-CORALIS sectors, for both, the duration of the project and beyond.
Target markets of CORALIS project can be divided into two groups. The first one includes the large volumes of materials mobilised, where construction, cement and foundries are the key sectors. The second group focuses on industries with the highest share of usable waste heat, that are in the the chemical and petrochemical sectors. Iron and steel industries can be considered as transversal to both groups.
CORALIS includes tasks devoted to creating mechanisms (both technical and methodological) to ensure secure data sharing among the different demonstrators involved. The result of these tasks will bring recommendations and tools for the participants to raise trust and confidence.
CORALIS will carry out a characterization of different processes and industries according to well-defined key resource indicators and performance attributes (KRI and KPA) in order to support an effective monitoring and impact assessment strategy throughout the project lifecycle. These indicators will be translated into a 3-pillar methodology process composed by Technological, Economic and Management Readiness Level scales, which will provide a standardized framework for measuring IS benefits and increase of awareness through the knowledge release.
