Good practice:

Biofuel production from food industry residues

The plant is a symbiosis of energy company St1 and beverage company Hartwall where residues from Hartwell’s drinks manufacturing are used as material for bioethanol production. By locating the plants next to each other, the leftover yeast and other liquid waste containing sugar and alcohols can be directly pumped to the bioethanol plant, accounting for up to 40 % of the raw material required by the ethanol plant, with rest shipped from other locations.
As part of the European Union’s RES-directive, in Finland, fuel sold for transport must contain an aggregate percentage of biofuels, the obligation in 2020 being 20 %. This has led to the creation of various novel bioethanol production efforts in Finland, including many by St1.
The plant's fermentation system uses a variety of waste biomass from failed beverage batches, yeast, leftover bread from stores and other waste from bakeries and biowaste from stores. Etanolix plants as a concept were born out of a desire to make bioethanol production more local moving it out of the third world and into Europe and not being dependent on food crops by using waste instead.
The produced fuel is mixed into transport fuel and sold, making the stakeholders of the practice the transport sector as well as commuters. From the supply side, drinks manufacturers, bakeries and stores are all beneficiaries. The yeast leftover is also further processed into feed for pigs, making farmers another stakeholder group.

Plant employs only 2 full-time operators and few others on hourly basis. St1 shares maintenance and laboratory functions between all of its ethanol plants in Finland. Plant is operated remotely during nights and weekends as during normal operation no on-site crew is required. Plant cost ~several M€.

The St1’s Etanolix plant in Lahti is able to produce 1,3 million litres of bioethanol in a year.
The cooperation of St1 and local food industries is a successful example of turning waste into valuable material. The Etanolix plant treats bio-based by-products of nearby industries, and thus reduces the amount of produced waste.

Emissions of the fuel are reduced by 70 % compared to equivalent fossil fuels.

The wide variety of raw material used by the plant creates challenges for production. The amount of quality of waste the plant receives varies temporarily which complicates optimization of the production process.
On the other, this had led to a fast ability to react to changes in production.

A similar system could be implemented in other places with breweries and so it has much potential. The EU member states also must require fuel suppliers to supply a minimum of 14% energy consumed in road and rail transport by 2030 as renewables. the share of biogas and advanced biofuels, such as the bioethanol produced by St1 Etanolix plant, must increase to 1% by 2025 and 3.5% by 2030. Therefore, we can foresee potential for similar plants across Europe in order to fulfil this goal.