Financing asparagopsis Factory 02: a low-methane future for beef and dairy farms

Purpose and goal:

Support from Vinnova enabled us to prepare a high quality application for the EIC Accelerator. The financing was sought for the construction of Factory 02, a medium-sized Lome production facility. Lome is a methane-reducing additive for cows made from the algae Asparagopsis.

By adding Lome to cattle feed at ~0.6% of total daily rations, methane emissions can be reduced by up to 90%. With support from the EIC, Volta aims drastically reduce the agricultural sectors´ climate footprint by scaling up Lome production. Expected results and effects:

The goal of this project is the construction of Factory 02 (phase 1), a medium-sized algae production facility. This is a first of a kind (FOAK) production plant. EIC funding would be used to validate our blueprint in a mid-commercial size production unit before scaling up to a full commercial sized production unit. The first phase of Factory 02 will enable us to provide continuous production of methane-reduced products for our industry partners in the beef and dairy sector.

Approach and implementation: There were two objectives to this project:

1) Developing first stage application documentation. This was submitted in summer 2023 and approved by the expert evaluation committee of the EIC.

2) Develop high quality second stage EIC application. This requires extensive documentation and planning. This was submitted in October 2023. All of Volta Greentech´s workstreams provided input for this project.