Winner of sustainable use of resources

TransAlgae received the Arctic Award in the category sustainable use of resources at the Interreg Nord conference in Luleå November 15. Ida Norberg, BioFuel Region and Francesco Gentili, SLU represented the TransAlgae project.

The motivation:

There is a need of cost effective and sustainable ways to clean waste streams of different sources. Algae are not use in the arctic region for this purpose. The project will contribute to increase the knowledge of algae and develop the algae sector as a part of the bioeconomy. TransAlgae contributes in a very clear way to the main criteria innovation, impact and focus. The focus is cultivation of algae in the Nordic conditions which means a colder and darker climate in the winter season. The developed cultivation system should be robust towards temperature variations during day and night. One important thing is to develop cultivation in different waste streams with the purpose of removing nutrients and carbon dioxide from the waste in a sustainable way. A key issue for investment is the economic sustainability of the algae after cultivation. Therefore, the project will investigate different possible usages of algae after harvesting with the purpose of finding a sustainable value chain with a good market potential.

- We are very happy! This shows that our project is on time and it gives us more energy to together find innovative solutions to the problems we have today, says Ida Norberg, BioFuel Region.

The Arctic Project Awards 2017 competition was launched on the 11th August and closed on the 6th October 2017. The award has been designed to highlight exceptional projects focusing on topics of particular relevance to the Arctic area. The competition was open to projects funded by the NPA or NPP, Interreg Botnia-Atlantica, Interreg Nord and Kolarctic CBC programmes.

More about TransAlgae

The goal with the TransAlgae project is to find new solutions for renewable energy and products from algae. Micro- and macroalgae are produced from industrial waste streams such as waste water and flue gases. There is clear benefit on the environment and climate, as algae reclaim both carbon dioxide and nutrients. 

TransAlgae is a cross-border project between Sweden, Finland and Norway that is lasting between 2016 to 2019 and funded by Interreg Botnia-Atlantica. SLU is the lead partner and the other partners are BioFuel Region, Mid Sweden University, Nattviken Invest, Novia UAS, Vasa University and NIBIO.