Industrial symbiosis can offer many environmental benefits, in terms of waste efficiency, as it can offer better waste management and promote material cycle. It can further help in reduction of GHG emissions, while also creating economic value from waste material.

In terms of energy there are two possible exchanging resources, power and heat & cooling. Power generated by industries from CHP, renewable systems, etc. which is not consumed by their own processes can be redirected to other industries. In the same way waste heat (high grade) coming from industrial processes can be utilized by other nearby industrial processes and/or by district heating networks.

The same could happen when cooling is the unwanted (waste) product, cooling networks could provide cooling capacity to other industries in need.

Therefore, the main criteria for a successful industrial symbiosis are:

• The raw material, by-product, product or waste of one industry must be a resource for another one.
• The amount of the shared resource must cover a large part of the produced material/energy within the partnership.
• The exchange must be economically viable for all involved parts.

In most cases industries must be located geographically as closest as possible to reduce transport costs, losses, etc.

Industries have to redesign their supply chains, and to provide guarantees to the other industries.

The cost of implementing different technologies for waste heat recovery, heat transfer, power supply, etc can be excessive in some cases.

Shared resources must comply with other industries’ regulations, standardization and other technical requirements.

Information about the resources, process lines or waste product specs could bring confidentiality issues (industries are not willing to share details of their production lines).

Industries using perhaps the waste of other industrial processes could create dependence. This could cause issues when industries have drops or rises in production capacity.

In partnerships with long term contracts with fixed prices, drop of power/energy costs from the grid can have a huge economic impact on the final product cost.

• Industrial_Symbiosis (europa.eu)

Emissions, costs

• Decarbonisation Plans for Industry: https://netzerocities.app/resource-1718
• Solar Thermal in industries: https://netzerocities.app/resource-1438
• Geothermal heat source solution in industries:  https://netzerocities.app/resource-1448
• Waste heat recovery in district heating networks: https://netzerocities.app/resource-858

Check case studies in: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.135536