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Seini, one of the success stories of the Smart City concept

A former fortress, the Transylvanian town of Seini is among the oldest settlements in Romania. Located in the Somes river meadow and flanked by mellow hills of which the highpoint is represented by the northern Comja hill, Seini - Maramures County is currently a model to be followed as regards the implementation of the Smart City concept. Seini is the first town in Romania to produce energy from manure and household waste in a gas-to-grid biogas plant inaugurated in 2016.

The locality already appeared in documentary evidence of the 14th century, in the "Papal Tithing list of 1334". In 1344 Seini becomes an 'opidum', a market town that will survive even after the destruction of the fortress in 1563. 425 years later, in 1988, Seini advances to the status of town. As early as in the 19th century, specifically in 1882, Seini was already a state-of-the-art settlement, having developed at a fast pace and running a rural court, tax office, land register, notary public, finance department and gendarmerie, three bank offices, telegraph — mail, and two casinos. 
  
The history of the town shows that in 1875 the local alcohol factory founded 16 years before began to produce beer yeast. Other local facilities include an andesite tomb stone factory, a steam mill and a printing house. According to information published on the website of the Seini Town Hall, in the first decades of the 20th century there was a steep increase in the number of workshop owning craftspeople, as 80 licenses were released. The andesite quarry is also being inaugurated, as well as the Power Plant and the Abrasive Products Factory. Bridging time to reach the years after WW II, we see a mature development of the area, with the "Unirea" crafts cooperative founded in 1944.

As for the town's clean energy plans, it all started in the winter of 2013, when the Seini Town Hall confirmed the investment to test and prove the feasibility of biogas production from manure and household organic waste through anaerobic fermentation, as well as of cogeneration energy.

In the first phase, this was a 2.5 million euro worth of investment of which 86 percent provided by the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change of that time from a non-reimbursable grant under the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and 14 percent in co-funding from the Seini Town Hall. Seini mayor Gabriela Tulbure told AGERPRES that the decision was taken following the analysis conducted by the Technical Commission of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change on the pre-feasibility studies. The investment is made under the project 'Integrated Nutrient Pollution Control'.

The pilot investment was supposed to prove the efficiency of using manure and dung from husbandry farms and individual households for the production of energy and organic fertilizers. Moreover, it would have shown everyone that it is possible to develop a project Romania without it being "derailed" by more or less justified hindrances.

Three years later, in November 2016, the Seini Town Hall cut the ribbon of the biogas pilot plant worth 3.4 million euro funded mainly from a World Bank loan, while 5.7 percent came from local funds.

The project 'Integrated Nutrient Pollution Control' thus materialized in a biogas plant and a livestock manure platform that brought the community a series of economic, social and environmental benefits, as Gabriela Tulbure reports.

"The Seini project brings the locals three major benefits: economic — as we collect money to the local budget from the sale of electricity, the sale of the resulting fertilizer and the use of the thermal energy. The second consists of the creation of jobs for the town's inhabitants and, last but not least, we have a cleaner environment following the proper use of manure and the reduction of pollution," the Seini mayor explained Agerpres.

According to data made available by the Seini Town Hall, the biogas plant in the area uses as raw material cow manure (about 8,000 tons / year), poultry waste (5,000 tons / year), pig waste (5,000 tons / year) / and solid corn (2,000 tons / year). All this results in an output of 370 kWh of electricity and 420 kWh of heat.

"The electricity produced is fed into the National Power System based on a supply contract signed with Electrica SA. In addition, the heat produced is used to dry the fertilizer and will next be used to heat the greenhouses that the Town Hall plans to build near the plant," said Gabriela Tulbure.

The local community is currently producing its own electricity and can also feed the surplus into the national grid. The investment also created 14 jobs.

The Seini biogas plant can take in about 10,000 tons a year of manure and organic waste, significantly reducing the nitrogen pressure on agricultural land in the area. As regards the development of intelligent solutions, the Seini authorities also have a portfolio of bulky waste collection centers built on the outskirts of the Farcasa commune. The financing contract for the design and execution of these sites, a 63 million euro worth of project (plus VAT), was initialed in November 2014.

The "Smart City" concept thus starts taking shape in Romania's small and medium-sized towns, also driven by communities with less than 50,000 inhabitants that are the living proof that things can move faster here than in populous municipalities. Seini, a city with 9,569 inhabitants (according to 2014 data), is one of the success stories where, once the first step is taken, things naturally move towards the economic and social development of the area.



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