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Alier switching from gas to forest biomass

Alier switching from gas to forest biomass
Contract signing with David Liste Alba (left) CEO of ENGIE Spain and Elisabet Alier (centre), President of Alier (photo courtesy ENGIE Spain).

In Spain, papermaker Alier S.A has fast-tracked plans to decarbonize paper production at its Roselló papermill with a 15- year steam offtake agreement with ENGIE Soluciones España S.A. (ENGIE Spain) that will design, build, finance, own, maintain, and operate a new 36 MWth biomass-fired steam boiler plant.

Incorporated in 1832, Barcelona-based Alier, S.A ventured into the world of paper manufacturing as early as 1886 making it one of the oldest paper makers in Spain. The company operates a papermill in Roselló, Lleida that began operations in 1948 using 100 percent recycled paper where it has the capacity to produce 180 000 tonnes per annum of paper products such as Plaster Board Liner (PBL), kraft bags- and sacks.

A sector under pressure

A privately-held company, Elisabet Alier, President of Alier is also President of the Spanish Association of Pulp, Paper and Cardboard Manufacturers (ASTAPEL), a sector under pressure not least on account of the ongoing energy crisis and economic downturn.

The main objective of the paper sector is to promote the transformation of the Spanish paper chain into an international benchmark for the circular and decarbonized industry. And for this, we propose an investment plan for the next three years with EUR 1.4 billion and 180 projects of fifty companies, said Elisabet Alier in March 2022 speaking on behalf of ASTAPEL.

Nonetheless, according to ASTAPEL, the Spanish paper sector is struggling to get the Government to offer more aid and lower costs related to the use of renewable energies in order to implement them 100 percent in production.

It is urgent to provide certainty, predictability, and a competitive energy cost environment to our industry that facilitates the energy transition and clears the path to decarbonization. What is not working must be reformed: urgent action is needed at the EU level to overcome this situation. And it is not only the future of the industry but the economic recovery and the transformation of our economy that we are playing for, Elisabet Alier said.

Replace gas with biomass

For its own part, Alier is already well-versed in the circular economy, and the papermaker has the ambition to decarbonize its production to achieve net zero by 2025 by replacing fossil gas with biomass and solar photovoltaic (PV).

In terms of decarbonization, our goal is to replace gas and fossil fuels with renewable fuels and green hydrogen, incorporate biogas and hydrogen as fuels to obtain thermal energy and also obtain electricity through renewable sources such as photovoltaics, biomass, or renewable waste. The achievements already obtained go down that route and that is where we continue to go, said Elisabet Alier.

Powering the papermill is currently a 25 MW gas-fired co-generation unit that provides 215 GWh of electricity and 320 000 tonnes of high-pressure steam per annum. The unit uses fossil gas and biogas, the latter of which is supplied by the papermill’s wastewater treatment plant (WWTP).

Decarbonize production by 2025

In light of the current energy situation in Europe, Alier has now decided to advance on this decarbonization project and has partnered with ENGIE Spain, a subsidiary of France-headed global energy- and energy services major ENGIE SA.

The companies have signed an agreement for the construction and commissioning of a new 36 MWth biomass-fired steam generation plant on a site adjacent to the papermill in Roselló.

ENGIE Spain will be in charge of the design, installation, management, maintenance, and financing of the bioheat project, and supply up to 97 percent of Alier’s steam demand – 50 tonnes per hour.

Sustainably sourced forest biomass

Under the terms of the 15-year “energy-as-a-service” (EAAS) agreement, ENGIE Spain will reduce the papermill’s fossil gas consumption by 97 percent, thanks to this bioheat solution for steam production.

Using recycled paper and cardboard, the Alier papermill has the capacity to produce 180 000 tonnes per annum of paper products (photo courtesy Alier).

Once operational, the facility will be one of the largest biomass plants in Spain dedicated to the self-consumption of thermal energy in the production process of a manufacturing plant. At the same time, it will cut Alier’s fossil carbon footprint by nearly 91 000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually.

The new steam boiler plant will use forest biomass, sourced from sustainable forest management (SFM) in the region, as fuel supplemented with the biogas generated by the mill’s WWTP.

The facility will also provide important local benefits such as promoting fire prevention and improving the state of the region’s forests, enabling their sustainable management, contributing to local social and economic development, as well as reducing dependency on energy imports as it is an indigenous and local fuel.

Reduce energy consumption

To achieve an overall reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, Alier is carrying out a series of mitigation projects in parallel with the bioheat project with ENGIE Spain.

Elisabet Alier, President of Alier and President of ASTAPEL – the Spanish Association of Pulp, Paper, and Cardboard Manufacturers (photo courtesy ASTAPEL).

This includes the installation of a total of 12 MW solar PV for self-consumption and increasing biogas production of the wastewater treatment plant.

A project is also underway to replace all the motors of paper machine three (PM3), which will reduce electricity consumption by more than 10 percent in 2023.

Earlier this year the company secured a EUR 3 million Next Generation EU grant towards a project that aims to reduce water consumption in the recycled paper manufacturing process by between 30 and 40 percent.

On the product side, new developments, such as its new “Carton Wall High Performance” product, have also contributed to this objective from the point of view of the final use of the product, since savings have been achieved in carbon footprint transmitted to the final product and therefore to the downstream value chain.

With this product, the papermaker is in the process of implementing an Energy Management System based on the ISO 50001: 2018 standard, in which it has carried out the life cycle analysis (LCA) and the environmental product declaration (EPD).

Plastics recovery

According to the Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI), Europe consumed almost 76 million tonnes of paper and board in 2020. Of this 56 million tonnes were recycled, implying a recycling rate – that is, paper that is recycled as raw material in papermills including imported recycled paper over the total consumption of paper and cardboard – of almost 74 percent.

Spain is the second largest recycler of paper and cardboard in the European Union (EU), second only to Germany. According to ASPAPEL, Spain’s paper recycling rate stands at 78 percent (2021).

As a papermill that uses recycled paper and cardboard as feedstock, waste plastic, and metals are separated out as residuals in the pulping process.

Recycled paper contains contaminants such as plastics, metals, and foreign objects that are separated out in the pulping process (photo courtesy ASTAPEL).

For example, the polyethylene (PE) and aluminum foil barrier linings that are found in liquid containerboard used in milk- and juice cartons. The plastic residual has either been landfilled or used as fuel in suitable energy recovery facilities.

In 2019, as part of the company’s sustainability and decarbonization objectives to achieve zero waste, Alier launched a plastics recovery and recycling project.

This has resulted in a new plastics recovery and recycling unit now fully operational at the papermill and a new business line – a merchantable secondary plastic. To date, some 30 000 tonnes have been recovered for recycling as a secondary material for new plastic products.

Our industry is characterized by an unusual double circularity that combines the natural circularity of a renewable raw material such as cellulose fiber, from plantation wood, with the social circularity of recycling, since paper products are recyclable and massively recycled, ended Elisabeth Alier.

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