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Hotels make sustainable with energy from food waste
The BioTransformer bio-digester.

Hotels sustainable with energy from food waste

Smart bio-digester converts food waste into green electricity

At many hotels, mountains of food waste are thrown away every day. A shame, because with a bio-digester you can also convert these waste streams into green energy that you can use immediately. Good for the environment and for your wallet.

Did you know that you can cook for 20 minutes on gas with just one banana peel? Then think what you could do with all the food waste that hotels throw away every day. That's quite a lot: in the entire hospitality industry, 60 million kilos of food waste are thrown away every year. A shame, thought the founders of Circ Energy. 

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The biodigester converts food waste into biowater.

From residual power to energy

Co-founder René Schers: "The hotel industry has been working hard for years to prevent waste. And they are certainly on the right track with that. Yet you see that - despite more and more waste being separated - many residual flows remain. Just think of all those buffets that naturally have to be well stocked, but don't always go all the way." 

But what if those residual streams could instead be converted back into energy? With that mission in mind, the Houten-based company builds bio digesters that convert between 50 and 600 kilos of vegetable, fruit and food waste (GFE) into gas, electricity and heat every day. Schers says: "Because how nice is it if you can convert that bin of food waste into energy that you can use again at the hotel itself? That's how you put residual flows into circular use."

This is not only good for the environment, but in today's times when the electricity grid is increasingly overloaded, it also makes good business sense. "If you remain dependent on the grid, you don't know whether you will be able to expand your connections in the future. Or whether enough hot water will remain available, for example. If you generate your own electricity, you keep that in control." And practice also shows that those who consciously separate waste also end up producing less waste. Because the better you separate, the more residual streams you can use to convert into energy. 

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Close-up of the bio-digester.

This is how a BioTransformer works

Compare a bio-digester to a stomach: you fill it with food (food scraps in this case), that food is chewed, digested and the energy is absorbed from it. This also happens in Circ's BioTransformer. All GFE residues are weighed and analysed to optimise the fermentation process. With AI, the digester calculates, for example, how acidic the waste is, how thick and how much water is needed to ferment. "This way, the machine itself ensures maximum gas yield," Schers explains. 

The 'teeth' of the machine then make the leftovers as small as possible, after which the bacteria in the machine's 'stomach' get to work breaking down and digesting the food. "Those bacteria eat and fart at the same time. This is how they produce methane. The machine then filters that into usable gas that you can convert into hot water or electricity, for example."

Ideal for the hotel industry

The biodigesters are widely used in medium-sized and large hotels, but are also located at holiday parks, food manufacturers or healthcare and educational institutions. "Because you have to have some waste for such a machine. Otherwise it doesn't yield enough. But we see that almost every hotel with a restaurant has enough supply for a yield." Many hotels use the green energy for hot water for their heating, showers, swimming pools or wellness. "So even for gasless hotels, a bio-digester can be an asset: you can also convert the generated energy into hot water or electricity."

In addition, the biodigester provides so-called bio-water as output. "You can use that as plant nutrition, for example," Schers explains. "In the future, bio-water will become a sustainable substitute for artificial fertiliser, for example. Ideal for green maintenance at hotels, in other words."

Green choices at Zeeland Streams

One of the hotels that enjoys using Circ's BioTransformers is Hotel De Zeeuwse Stromen. The hotel makes as many green choices as possible. Not surprising, then, that they also opted for a bio-digester. Schers: "It was one of the first hotels to opt for our bio-digester. True pioneers, in other words." All the GFE waste left over from the restaurants at Hotel De Zeeuwse Stromen is converted into renewable energy by the bio-digester. For example, the hotel uses the green energy from the bio-digester to sustainably heat hotel rooms and areas in the hotel.  

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3991 CP Houten
Netherlands
Telefoonnummer +31851306889 E-mailadres [email protected] Website circ.energy/en

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