Schoeller has reached important milestones on the road to climate-neutral and more efficient production. At its Hellenthal site, the entire annual electricity requirement of over 27 million kWh is now sourced from CO₂-neutral electricity. Compressed air generation and heat requirements are two other major energy consumers. In these areas, Schoeller has now equipped all plants with new compressor stations, three of which feature energy recovery systems.
Compressed air and the compressors used for it are essential in many manufacturing plants, yet they account for a significant amount of energy consumption and CO₂ emissions. Unlike many companies that still use older electric drives, Schoeller switched early on to compressors with modern electric motors. However, these units still account for more than eight percent of the company’s total electricity consumption, ranking them third among energy consumers.
To significantly reduce this energy demand, the Sustainability Management department implemented a gradual approach. First, old compressors were replaced with new, highly efficient units. Thanks to much better efficiency rates, electricity consumption was reduced by up to 50 percent. Despite the much higher efficiency, a large amount of waste heat is still generated during operation. To make use of this, three plants have been equipped with heat recovery systems capable of reusing up to 96 percent of the waste heat. This allows the production of water at temperatures of up to 80°C, which can be used both in production processes and for heating halls and offices. At another compressed air station, waste heat in the form of warmed air is used directly to heat the production hall. Thanks to these systems, previously used natural gas boilers have been completely replaced, further reducing fossil fuel consumption.
These subprojects alone have led to direct annual savings of around 1.5 million kWh of natural gas, equivalent to a CO₂ reduction of 300 tonnes. Schoeller’s 2023 roadmap for achieving climate neutrality targets a 40 percent reduction in CO₂ emissions by 2030 at the latest. By 2035, the Hellenthal site aims to operate in a fully CO₂-neutral way.
Schoeller is proud to already be presenting concrete measures with measurable results just two years after launching the transformation concept. “In a transformation process of this scale, planning and awarding contracts are key. This is complex work, requiring many processes to interlink in order to achieve significant results. We are therefore particularly pleased to see visible progress and tangible reductions in the area of compressed air generation and heat recovery. This motivates everyone involved to keep going,” says Energy Manager Fabian Könn, who leads the heat recovery project in compressed air generation.
With this subproject, Schoeller has significantly reduced or replaced the use of fossil fuels by heating via recovered waste heat. The next steps will focus on hydrogen consumption and production, connecting the plant to a wind farm, and implementing a major project to use waste heat from cooling systems to heat the entire Plant II.