Revelation

Project Description

The objective of the Revelation project is to transform the energy efficiency and environmental impact of the site by pursuing three areas of improvement.

1 – Optimisation of natural gas combustion

The project will improve the current situation by installing a new generation of burners, fitted with in-line Carbon Monoxide (CO) monitoring and precise control of the air/gas ratio.

2 – Optimisation of the vacuum generation system

Currently the vacuum system is poorly adapted to variations in production demand. The installation of “blowers” (variable speed fans) to replace the vacuum pumps will enable the vacuum level to be adjusted to production demand.

3 – Recovery and re-use of waste heat

At this moment, warm air drawn from the production process is dumped into the atmosphere at 64° C. The air will be re-used by installing recovery equipment that will heat the production buildings and pre-heat the combustion air for the four production burners.

Project Purpose

The VSE factory emits 42,000 tonnes of CO2 a year. The objective of the Revelation project is to reduce this by at least 10%, thanks to more than €2 million of investment in equipment. This is a dynamic and highly innovative project, piloted locally in France and with worldwide potential. In fact, the Kimberly-Clark group will rely on the experience of our French factory to replicate the improvements in some 15 similar production lines worldwide.The Revelation project was initiated by Kimberly Clark energy experts, who then joined forces with a design office to produce feasibility studies in 2013 and engineering studies in 2014. During the implementation phase (September 2015 to March 2016), 150 people from 25 sub-contractor companies (96% of them local, drawn from the Lorraine region) worked on the site.

Project Evaluation

Environmental benefits: reduction of 4,100 tonnes CO2/year, equivalent to 10% of the site’s emissions; reduction in the emission ratio (tonnes of CO2 per tonne of paper produced) by 8%.

Energy benefits: reduction of 25 GWh, equivalent to 7% of the site’s consumption.

Benefits in terms of atmospheric waste: reduction in CO content through combustion optimisation (controlling the air/gas ratio) and design of combustion equipment adapted to production demands.

Main Features:

CO2 Emissions saved (tCO2)

4,100 tonnes CO2/year, equivalent to 10% of the site’s emissions.

Investment

€2 million

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