Holcim Romania officially inaugurated the Waste Heat Recovery installation (WHR) at the cement plant from Alesd

Aleșd, November 12th, 2013 – Holcim Romania inaugurated today, in the presence of the local and central authorities, the Waste Heat Recovery installation which aims at substituting around 15% of the electricity consumption in Aleșd plant with „green energy”.

The EUR 15 million investment project was implemented and coordinated by Romanian engineers. The WHR installation substitutes about 15% of the electric power consumed in Aleșd plant, currently sourced from the public grid, with „green” energy, obtained by using the residual gas resulting from the burning and cooling of clinker (the intermediary material used to produce cement). Over 300 persons, 60% of whom were Romanians, were involved in the construction process. 

„The investment we are inaugurating today at our plant in Aleșd is part of Holcim Romania’s consistent efforts to reduce the consumption of energy and natural resources by implementing the best available technology in the field. Although the local economy is going through a difficult period, Holcim Romania continued its sustainable development projects, reaching with this project total investments of 178 million Euros in the Aleșd plant”, declared Daniel Bach, General Director Holcim Romania.

Over the past few years, Holcim Romania has introduced several innovative technologies on the Romanian market, being one of the groundbreakers in „green” cement manufacturing. The WHR system is a unique installation in Europe, as it uses two separate fluids (thermal oil and overheated water) to recover the waste heat resulting from the cement manufacturing process. The choice for this innovative solution was made due to its capacity to reduce the water consumption and to provide increased operating safety.

WHR advantages:

• 0 fossil fuels used by the new facility to produce electric power
• 0 emissions from the new facility (CO2, dust, NOx, SO2)
• 15% of the electrical energy consumed by Aleșd plant is produced by the new facility resulting in:
• Reduction in the consumption of electric power sourced from the grid
• Reduction of the indirect CO2 emissions by ~11.500 tons/year
• No release of emissions and additional noise
• Stable energy generation, with no impact on the electric power grid
   

Holcim cement plants in Aleșd and Câmpulung are optimized for a low thermal and electric power consumption, and the new facility meets the company’s plans to innovate in energy efficiency, and to contribute to combating climatic change. Both plants are among the top ten Holcim Group plants, out of more than 90 production units, in terms of their environmental performance. This performance was reached by implementing the best available technologies (BAT) for:

• Automation and modernization
• Permanent quality control of resources, process and products
• Permanent monitoring of emissions
• Bag filters for dust emissions 
• System to reduce Nox emissions
• Energy efficiency (~25% decrease of the specific energy consumption)
• Resource efficiency – co-processing waste as alternative fuels

The energy and material recovery of waste through co-processing is carried out in partnership with ecovalor, an organization specialized in waste management services, providing the Romanian society with integrated state-of-the-art solutions for safe waste management: consultancy, logistics, complex analysis and pre-treatment and co-processing recovery.

In 2012, a waste quantity equivalent to the quantity generated by a city with 250,000 inhabitants, such as Constanta, was safely recovered within Aleșd and Câmpulung cement plants.

The investments made by ecovalor and Holcim in Romania since 2007 in developing waste pre-treatment and co-processing operations exceeded EUR 32 million.

About Holcim Romania

Holcim (Romania) S.A. has two cement plants in Câmpulung and Aleşd, one grinding station and one cement terminal in Turda, 13 ecological ready-mix stations, 3 aggregate plants, 2 special road binders stations  and one cement terminal in Bucharest. Holcim Romania has approximately 950 employees. For more information, please visit company’s website, www.holcim.ro.

Holcim is one of the world's leading suppliers of cement and aggregates (sand and gravel), ready-mix concrete and asphalt, as well as related services. The Group holds majority and minority interests in around 70 countries on all continents.