The best relevant info for the waste-to-energy industry comes out of Argentina.

Argentina has a government renewable energy purchase program called RenovAr.
During Round 2 of the awarding of contracts, Fluence Italy helped ArreBeef with their 1.5 MW project, and may have had a hand in the Citrusvil 3MW project.

The cost of production of energy is much higher from a biogas plant (2x to 4x), than from traditional wind or solar plants, however, this is balanced by having consistent reliable power generation during operation, ability to store biogas and use later, plus utilization of waste (rather than dumping) and ability to produce fertilizers with the final waste components. For agricultural companies producing these waste streams, payback on building a plant can be 2 to 3 year under the RenovAr program and 4 to 5 years without it.

Starting around September this year, more contracts will be awarded in Round 3 of RenovAr, although contracts will likely not be finalized until 2020.

There seems plenty of opportunity for Fluence to win more projects under RenovAr in the future, as they are already discussing Round 4 as well.

Here is a relevant article to Fluence:

February 8, 2019
The financial strategy: Fluence reveals how it develops its renewable energy projects

The global developer of biogas ventures is setting up two plants in Argentina that were selected during Round 2 of the RenovAr Program and plan to start up in early 2020. What role will play in Round 3?



Fluence is an international company with more than 30 years of experience in the design, construction and operation of waste-to-energy conversion plants for a wide range of industrial and municipal customers.

"Our patented anaerobic treatment technology processes effluents and sludge to produce biogas, which can be used to produce electricity and thermal energy, or that can be purified to produce biomethane to be injected into the network," said the company.

In an interview for Strategic Energy, Ignacio Albornoz , a reference for Fluence Argentina, provides details on how the projects that the company awarded during Round 2 of the RenovAr Program are advancing and how they are making progress in their financial strategy.

How did Fluence's interest in the Argentine renewable energy market emerge?

In Argentina there are large food companies, such as refrigerators, which in recent years are growing thanks to greater openness to export.

The same customers of their exports request more stringent requirements in terms of quality and environmental care, and for this reason we have focused on the Argentine renewable energy market for this type of industry.

We see that Argentina has a huge latent potential for generating energy based on biogas, both for food processing industries and for the agricultural segment, and in parallel there is a set of important challenges in terms of effluent treatment and reduction of environmental impact , where we can really add value.

Of course, with the arrival of the RenovAr Program, the incentives created are explicit, but beyond this specific plan, and observing the new energy regulatory framework of Argentina, which is very focused on renewables, as well as the tariff adjustments derived from the energy deficit, It sets a scenario of structural costs that favors projects with good returns based on the generation of energy (electricity and biomethane).



What renewable energy projects are currently developing in the country and in what degree of progress are they?

Right now the two projects that we won last year with the Tucumán company Citrusvil (3 MW), and with the Arrebeef refrigerator (1.5 MW) are under construction. We are also making progress in evaluating projects with several of the most important companies in the refrigeration, citrus and dairy sector.

When do you estimate that they would be in commercial operation?

The projects that are now under construction will begin to be launched at the end of this year, and by the beginning of 2020 they will be fully operational.

Access to financing is one of the main challenges of the bioenergy market in Argentina. How have you managed this challenge since Fluence?

In general Fluence has two modalities to respond to this situation. On the one hand, the possibility of using the support of SACE, a company of the Italian state that allows to finance the clients of Italian exporting companies without blocking their lines of credit.

And the other way is related to the possibility of Fluence being a co-investor in the projects, which sometimes happens, given its technical capacity and the fact that Fluence has grown a lot as a corporation in recent years.

Are you interested in the development of other projects of this style in the country?

Absolutely interested, and in fact we are moving forward on new projects.

The presentation or not in Round 3 depends a little on each client, but in addition to the technological project itself, we accompany clients in the analysis of return on investment under different scenarios, whether they obtain or not obtain the RenovAr.

And we observe that given the current conditions, even in scenarios without RenovAr, the projects have good pay-back.

In the case of industrial plants that generate food-based products, when they apply efficient technologies for purification and generation of biogas, which do not involve huge areas of pools but work on more compact and intensive models, in addition to solving an environmental problem, they repay the investment between 2 and 3 years when we talk about the RenovAr, and between 4 and 5 years without considering the RenovAr.

What is your opinion of the RenovAr tender plan that has been launched by the national government?

It seems to have been a fairly reasonably armed plan, which took some lessons from previous experiences, and which had some errors that were later corrected.

What role have the World Bank guarantees played in this process?

Surely the issue of the World Bank guarantee was very important to provide security both for investors, as for the companies that contributed their substrates -in the case of biogas- and also for companies that, like Fluence, sold plants in Argentina.

http://www.energiaestrategica.com/la-multinacional-fluence-revela-como-se-estan-desarrollando-sus-proyectos-de-energias-renovables-adjudicados-en-el-renovar-y-cual-es-su-estrategia-financiera/



ArreBeef
The second exporting refrigerator will invest US $ 4.3 million to generate energy with bovine manure

The second beef exporting refrigerator in Argentina will invest US $ 4.3 million to produce energy based on bovine manure.

This is ArreBeef, founded in 1921 by Jaime Borrell and with a plant in Pérez Millán, in the party of Ramallo. Last year, that company was the second meat exporter in the country with 23,327.2 tons for US $ 131.5 million.

The firm, which slaughters 1100 animals per day, presented a project under the RenovAr 2.0 plan and now expects to sign a 20-year contract with Cammesa, the company that manages the wholesale electricity market, to then build a biogas plant.

"We will generate electricity through biogas produced by manure, ruminal content of animals, blood and organic matter," told the NATION Hugo Borrell (h), general director of the company.

It will be the first refrigerator in the country that will produce energy in this way. It will do so by 70% with manure and ruminal content and the remaining 30% with the blood and organic matter that leaves the biodigester that is used for this process.

For the construction of the plant, the firm contacted Italian, Austrian and German companies. Now he has to decide which company will carry out the construction, which has a work term of 520 running days.

We are going to start construction as quickly as possible. Not only are we going to use energy for ourselves, but we are going to sell it; Cammesa is going to pay us for what we have left, "said Hugo Borrell Sr., president of the firm.

As he pointed out, today the refrigerator has a monthly energy expenditure of around US $ 200,000 per month. "We see that energy is rising and it is an important consumption that we have," he said.

Faced with this cost, the firm will transform manure into electricity by providing 1.5 megawatts (MW) of power to the Argentine Interconnection System (SADI) at a bid price of US $ 150 MW / hour.

"It's an investment that is going to be repaid in four or five years," Borrell said. "This project contributes to significantly reduce the impact on the environment by achieving a more efficient use of each of the organic waste that comes from the production process," the company said in a report.

In addition to the generation of electrical energy, the process will also produce a fertilizer that the firm will use for fertilization in their fields.

https://www.lanacion.com.ar/economia/campo/el-segundo-frigorifico-exportador-invertira-us-43-millones-para-generar-energia-con-estiercol-bovino-nid2086855
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181030006181/en/Fluence-Awarded-Waste-to-Energy-Harvesting-Project-Argentina



Citrusvil

Agribusiness

Circular bioeconomy: from lemon to biogas

The Tucumán company Citrusvil converts the discarding of the processing of fresh fruits into biogas and fertilizer. Thus, it self-supplies with 35% of its own gas and fertilizer for 500 hectares.

The 7,500 hectares of lemons that they put into production each year make them the world's leading producer. Citrusvil processes 330,000 tons of fresh fruit that they industrialize to obtain lemon essential oil, concentrated lemon juice and dry peel. But the highlight of all this is that it is made without effluents that return to the environment, but that all industrial waste ceases to be such and return to the productive circuit as biogas and fertilizer.

From the remains of the pulp and the broths, after the industrialization of the lemon, they produce biogas with which they self-supply 35 percent of the energy consumption of one of the two processing plants.

"The project arose from the desire of the Citrusvil board to be at the forefront always and also as an incentive to be suppliers of Coca Cola for more than 30 years, which always favors the professionalization of everything," explained the business manager of Citrusvil , Hernán Ruggiero.

In fact, according to a report by the Mediterranean Foundation, Coca-Cola buys 60 percent of the Argentine production of concentrated orange juice and 30 percent of the concentrated juice of lemon and grapefruit (another reference as Ledesma is also supplier). This is equivalent to the processing of 80,000 tons of oranges, 15,000 of grapefruit and 170,000 of lemons.

The pulp and the broths that remain after the processing of the fruit to separate juices are poured into a large bubble or biodigester where some yeasts consume the solid matter and turn it into carbon dioxide and methane.

"This allows us not only to produce biogas, but also waste water, the liquid that remains, is used in 500 hectares of lemon plantations as irrigation water, " said Ruggiero. In 25 days all the waste becomes input.

In this sense, the 10,000 cubic meters of daily waste (actually stop being waste), after passing through the biodigester return to the circuit as gas and compost, to fertilize lemon trees that will then return to the processing plant, and so .. in a virtuous circle of zero effluent.

"We were pioneers worldwide in the use of this technique from the lemon industry and also in achieving zero effluents by producing biogas," said Ruggiero.

Although the biodigesters project began a decade ago, before that, Citrusvil was already treating effluents aerobically in artificial lagoons. What biodigester technology allows is, through anaerobic processing, to make it more efficient and, of course, to add biogas production.

For assistance and technological advice in the construction of the biodigesters, we worked with Biotec, a Belgian company dedicated to the treatment of agroindustrial effluents. Per year, around 14,000 million cubic meters of natural gas are consumed to generate steam and to dry the shell.

With a ton of processed fruit, 16 cubic meters of biogas are produced. With three biodigesters, today Citrusvil replaces 35 percent of the natural gas used to power the boilers of one of the plants, representing a saving of more than $ 550,000.

80 percent of the Argentine lemon is produced in the province of Tucumán. Argentina is the main producer of yellow lemon in the world (there are other types of lemon such as Lima Persa where Mexico is the leader, or Lima Tahiti, where Brazil leads). Thus, it occupies a prominent role in the sale of fresh fruit, considering the contrastation to the northern hemisphere (mainly Europe). In that business he competes with South Africa and between them they share the market.

The 7,500 hectares put into production are distributed on 23 farms. They have nurseries of their own that leave 200,000 plants per year. It seeks to produce plants of quality, health and varietal certainty.

They reach 100 countries and sell four products: fresh lemon and three post industrialization: lemon essential oil (used in the manufacture of soft drinks, sweets, perfumery and pharmacy), concentrated lemon juice (soft drinks) and dry skin.

"They are four very different businesses and all have a high added value," Ruggiero said. He added: "Contrary to what is supposed, the product with the highest added value is fresh fruit, where labor exceeds 50 percent of the cost of the product thinking of a fruit that will go directly to consumption requires a delicate harvest adding a very high unit value ".

Citrusvil has about 1,500 stable employees but in harvest times it can reach 6,000 (per campaign 4,500 harvesters are needed) displaying a strong economic and social influence in the region.It is worth remembering that one out of every three tons of concentrated lemon juice sold in the world is from Citrusvil (it exports 22,000 of the 60,000 that are traded).

https://www.clarin.com/rural/bioeconomia-circular-limon-biogas_0_rklX6EPOf.html

Project may be delayed:

According to the calculations of the Electricity Wholesale Market Management Company (CAMMESA), another three plants that will treat garbage should start operating this year, according to the commitments presented by their respective bidders.

Two of them (Gonzales Catán and Ricardone) have expired. However, companies can access extensions, protected by Clause 7.2 of the Bidding Terms and Conditions , after the payment of guarantee guarantees and the corresponding justification of the delays in the milestones. Another reason for making terms more flexible is due to delays in signing the guarantee with the World Bank. That is why they enjoy extensions.

In addition to Gonzales Catán and Ricardone, there are four other biogas ventures that have exceeded the committed date. These are the Avellaneda, Citrusvil and Huinca Renancó ventures.

http://www.energiaestrategica.com/este-ano-se-inauguran-20-plantas-de-biogas-un-listado-con-las-provincias-y-empresas-que-participan-de-los-proyectos/

2010 first biogas plant design with Belgian company.
https://cdm.unfccc.int/filestorage/E/X/0/EX0LA56ZY3C9W78TOQ2SIUK1D4FVNG/Revised%20PDD%20Version%2010.1?t=OTN8cHM4Z3p3fDDprTJ_KChyViREwIVYPGNM
https://cdm.unfccc.int/filestorage/6/W/2/6W28M4RYV1NBDGHSE5AL07IKOTFUCZ/Final%20Revised%20Validation%20Report.pdf?t=ZjF8cHM4aDJifDAi339KFPl08a-9lYXiiADX

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General Renewable Energy Report Argentina + other relevant info:
http://minaaysp.cba.gov.ar/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/AIRECweek-2018-The-Argentina-Report.pdf
http://www.proinged.org.ar/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/PRESENTACION-JULIO-MENENDEZ.pdf
https://www.lanacion.com.ar/economia/campo/crece-generacion-energia-biomasa-agroindustria-nid2178859

RenovAr Round 3

https://www.argentina.gob.ar/noticias/el-programa-renovar-lanza-su-ronda-3
http://www.energiaestrategica.com/para-kiper-la-licitacion-renovar-3-recibira-cuantiosas-ofertas-pero-su-exito-estara-atravesado-por-el-clima-politico/
https://econojournal.com.ar/2019/03/postergan-la-presentacion-de-ofertas-del-programa-renovar-3/
https://www.apertura.com/negocios/Un-frigorifico-quiere-utilizar-sus-desechos-para-generar-energia-20180822-0015.html