STUDY VISIT TO BIOGAS PLANTS IN OSLO The study visit of the POM-BIOGAS project partners to Oslo was organized on 7 th -9 th May 2014 by the Norwegian Partner – Aquateam COWI AS. The main objectives of the tour were: 1. Visitation of two Norwegian power plants, deriving biogas from municipal waste; 2. Introduction to the sorting and recycling system in Norway; 3. Conducting the working project meeting due to project progress review, cooperation amongst the project partners and programming of the future project activities and tasks. The following two biogas facilities were visited: Romerike biogas plant located in Esval Nes, Hadeland og Ringerike Avfallsselskap AS (HRA) located in Musmyrvegen 10. The Romerike biogas plant was designed and built up to the highest specifications in the biowaste sector. Its capacity allows to treat 50 000 t/a of food waste. In addition, the plant is able to produce approximately 27 000 t/a of nutritious biofertilizer to serve about 100 mediumsized farms. The production line also includes a facility to produce upgraded fuel liquid biogas for buses in Oslo, to replace fossil fuels. Replacing diesel with upgraded biogas to fuel 135 buses or similar vehicles will reduce fossil CO2 emissions by 10’000 tons a year. Biogas in buses means cleaner air and less noise for Oslo’s 500’000 residents. However, the route of waste to become a valuable biogas is pretty long. Firstly, it has to come through the sorting facility in order to separate organic fraction from inorganic bulk. Innovative optical sorting facilities are employed to separate bags containing food waste from those containing plastic.