George Osei Owusu

INTERVIEW

Please introduce yourself and your role in the project!

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My name is George Osei Owusu. I'm a project and technical officer at the European Biogas Association here in Brussels and I am representing EBA for this project mainly at Work Package 4, on process design, as well as work package 7, which is looking at the impacts through dissemination, communication and then exploitation of the results, to be able to develop business models that will facilitate the upscale, the uptake and as well as their replication of the ēQATOR technologies.

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How did you learn about the project and become a partner?

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Following the Commission's call - and we are usually involved in most of these Horizon Europe projects - we were contacted to be a part of this consortium when the proposal was dropped, and we accepted it because the ēQATOR project was very, very interesting. So, in 2022, we accepted to be a part of the consortium to finalize this project.

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What is your organisation's role in the project, and what expertise do you bring to the table?

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EBA is working together with project partners to be able to develop a technology in renewable methanol production. So here in the ēQATOR, we are assisting with information on the characteristics, the composition of several Biogas types with emphasis on biogas from industrial residues and manure mainly, and then, further in the project, we are going to analyze the business potential of the technology that will be developed from this project. It's implementation, with biogas suppliers, in order to maximize their profitability. So that is what we are looking forward to and what we're helping with in this project.

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How is your organisation collaborating with other partners in the project?

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Well, it's been fantastic, I would say. Because it has a blend of research and then some consulting companies as well as EBA. So, we are actually collaborating with partners, especially in Work Package 4, on the process design, with partners such as NextChem and IFEU to provide some data regarding biogas compositions, biogas pressure temperature for their reactors that will be developed in this project. So, a more technical angle on that side. And then also with SEZ in Germany with the communication and then dissemination of the project activities to create visibility and awareness about the project.

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How do your project activities contribute to the goal of the project to achieve a cost-competitive renewable methanol production with near zero CO2 emissions?

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In Work Package 7, under the exploitation tasks, we are going to be responsible for evaluating the business model. So, we're going to develop a business model that looks at the feasibility of the ēQATOR technology from different standpoints, I would say, such as the technical feasibility, the market feasibility, and the commercial feasibility. So, these studies will be made and then the outcome of these studies and the models will facilitate the road map, scaling up, and then the replication of the use of the technology, to contribute to their project's goal, which is creating a cost-competitive renewable methanol production.

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Regarding your tasks, what do you expect are or will be the greatest challenges during the project?

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For now, I'd say the major challenge that we may encounter will come from the development of the technology that will come at the end of the day. In that if it does not meet the market requirements or there are complications with the market introduction. But I would say that we are following closely with the developments to be able to ensure that we do not face this.

 

If you had one wish regarding the project, what would it be?

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I really have one wish for the project and I would say that we'll be able to achieve our objectives and then it will be successful at the end of the day.