The German SME Pusch GmbH & Co. KG has developed a prototype for a pelletising machine which is able to process all kinds of agricultural residues occurring in Europe as well as mixtures of these residues and further organic residues not directly deriving from agriculture, e.g. from food processing.
All these residues can be processed with just one machine and without any modifications in the hardware of the machine, which makes it unique compared to competing products. None of the available pelletising machines is able to process such a large variety of residues as they are often adapted to one kind of residues and complicated modifications are necessary to process other kinds of residues. Pusch’s machine provides advantages not only for European farmers, who can utilise and thus valorise their residues completely without much effort and generate an additional income, but also contribute to reaching Europe’s goals of climate protection as fossil fuels can be substituted by renewable fuels.
However, several technological developments are necessary, the market potential has to be confirmed and a commercialisation concept has to be developed to obtain a marketable machine. A feasibility study was conducted to assess the technological and economic feasibility of the pelletising machine and an initial business plan was developed as a basis for its commercialisation. The following works were conducted and their results are presented:
- Calculation of the market potential: A sufficient sales potential is the main requirement for a newly developed product. For pelletising machines the sales potential mainly depends on the availability of pelletisable organic residues and on the specific advantages over competing products:
- Estimation of availability of pelletisable organic residues: The European statistics department EUROSTAT provides detailed information on the amounts and types of waste generated. This information from EUROSTAT was combined with information from NACE to obtain further information on the origins and the properties of the waste generated. A comprehensive literature study was conducted to close the remaining data gaps.
- Competing products: A variety of competing products (pelletising machines) and technologies (other ways of valorisation of organic residues) exist and are available on the European market. Relevant features such as the productivity, the price, etc. were compared.
- Identification of technological improvement potentials: The existing pelletising machine is just a first prototype which has improvement potentials, e.g. the reduction of size and costs. A list of necessary and useful potential improvements was compiled.
- Assessment of feasibility of technological developments: An initial assessment of the technological feasibility of the improvement potentials including the development of first ideas for their implementation was conducted.
- Development of a commercialisation concept: Basics for a successful commercialisation of the pelletising machine were assessed. This mainly comprised the planning of the production facilities, transportation and service structures and distribution partners.
- Various small tasks: Investigation of legal framework, internal cost and staff calculations, IPR management, risk assessment, etc.
