Main features:
CO2 Emissions saved (tCO2)
1,600 tCO2
Investment
€900,000
Partnerships
French Energy Agency (ADEME)
Revelation II project – our energy saving initiative
Project Description
Our industrial activity is the production and processing of paper, which is a high consumer of energy and the subject of fierce international competition.
REVELATION II is a project developed by our team in the Villey St Etienne plant, contributing both to transforming the site’s environmental footprint and to the energy efficiency of production equipment. One priority of the Kimberly-Clark group is to minimise the environmental impact of our production sites through the Sustainability 2022 program. Energy is the plant’s third-highest cost item, so it represents a key challenge for competitiveness, as a number of global rivals are located in regions where energy is less expensive.
In 2015, the first phase of this project concluded with REVELATION I, constructed around three improvement areas aimed at energy savings for the plant, comprising: optimisation of the vacuum production required for paper drying; optimisation of the combustion required for paper drying and recovery and reuse of low-grade waste heat (64°C) from atmospheric emissions.
Project Purpose
REVELATION II is the continuation of REVELATION I and aims to extend the current recovery network to the heating of the processing buildings for folded and rolled products, the maintenance area and the site warehouse.
It will include:
- Heat recovery extension: a new hot-water/air heat-exchanger with additional capacity of 1,300 KW and a heat pipe network linked to three new areas of the building.
- Upgrade of the Hvac (air conditioning) system in the production building: implementation of VSD and air recovery register.
- A new centralised control and management system covering the entire building heating network.
Project Evaluation
REVELATION II will provide:
- 8,000 Tonnes/year of steam consumption savings – that’s 72% of the steam consumption for the heating building (gas only)
- 2,600 MWh/year of electricity savings, or 46% of the energy used for HVAC fans
- 1,600 Tonnes/year of CO2 emission reduction, equivalent to 4% of the site’s emissions.
Stephan Lemeer
Mill manager of Kimberly Clark Villey St Etienne site
Energy is an unavoidable issue for a paper manufacturer, since it represents the third-highest cost for a mill. This economic challenge fits with another priority of Kimberly-Clark, which is to minimise the environmental footprint of our production sites through the Sustainability 2022 program. In this context, Kimberly-Clark is investing in projects contributing to both the transformation of the site’s environmental footprint and the energy efficiency of production equipment. Thus, in 2015, we launched an innovative project for the recovery of heat at low temperature (64° C) and, thanks to its success, we are now continuing the process with an extension of the recovery of this heat at our industrial site in Villey St Etienne.
