Displaying items by tag: Germany

Germany: Iberdrola Germany and Schwenk Zement have entered a long-term electricity supply agreement. Schwenk will receive 1500GWh from the Windanker offshore wind farm, currently under construction in the Baltic Sea. This supply will account for about 20% of Schwenk's electricity needs. The wind farm will have 21 turbines, each with a capacity of 15MW, and will cover an area of approximately 17.9 km², located 38km northeast of Rügen. The farm will be connected to the grid in 2026.

Germany: KHD will carry out a front-end engineering design (FEED) study for the new oxyfuel kiln at Heidelberg Materials' Geseke cement plant, part of the GeZero carbon capture and storage (CCS) project. The project will capture and store around 0.7Mt/yr of CO₂.

Matthias Mersmann, chief technology officer at KHD, said "At KHD, we have long recognised oxyfuel technology’s potential for cement decarbonisation and are well-positioned to contribute to this important flagship project.”

Germany: Capsol Technologies has signed a cooperation agreement with Holcim to deliver a CapsolGo carbon capture demonstration campaign at Holcim’s Dotternhausen plant in southern Germany. The CapsolGo campaign will test Capsol’s carbon capture technology using its hot potassium carbonate (HPC) solvent. Capsol Technologies will provide the demonstration as a turnkey solution, including testing and validation to supply critical data and insight into the technology.

Dieter Schillo, plant manager of Holcim (Süddeutschland), said “The CapsolEoP (End-of-Pipe) unit’s design, requiring no external steam supply and exhibiting low energy consumption, makes it an attractive option for our Dotternhausen plant.”

If successful, Holcim plans to deploy Capsol’s technology across multiple cement plants globally. This builds on a feasibility study conducted by Aggregate Industries UK, a Holcim subsidiary, for the Cauldon cement plant in Stoke-on-Trent. Testing at Dotternhausen will run for four months, starting in the second quarter of 2025.

Germany: Claudius Peters has launched its Eta 5.0 clinker cooler. According to the company, Eta 5.0 offers energy savings, lower maintenance downtime and reduced environmental impact. It also features efficiency improvements, such as a new low-pressure-drop system and reduced friction in the transport system. The new cooler can be retrofitted to existing installations with minimal intervention.

Germany: Fluor has signed a front-end engineering and design (FEED) contract with Heidelberg Materials for its GeZero project to integrate an industrial-scale CO₂ capture and storage solution into its cement production facility in Geseke. Fluor will recognise the undisclosed contract value in the fourth quarter of 2024. It will be responsible for design integration of several decarbonisation technologies at the Geseke cement production facility. Construction is planned to start in 2026, with commissioning three years later.

Germany: Heidelberg Materials has appointed Gün Burak Günbey as Senior Project Manager at its Competence Center Cement global research and development hub.

Günbey has worked for the cement sector since the late 2000s. He has held engineering, project management and investment roles at OYAK Bolu Çimento, Limak Cement and Vicat. He became the Group Investment Manager for Vicat Group Türkiye in 2021 and subsequently worked as Project Expert for VICAT Senegal Sococim from 2023.

Germany: thyssenkrupp Polysius has appointed Philip Glörfeld as Head of Business Development & Sales. He will succeed Lukas Schoeneck in the role from the start of January 2025. Schoeneck became the head of Operating Unit Green Solutions in October 2024.

Glörfeld has worked for thyssenkrupp since 2015 in business development roles. In 2020 he became the Director Business Development & Sales Europe, Africa & CIS for the Polysius business unit that later became thyssenkrupp Polysius. Prior to his time at thyssenkrupp he worked at Siemens. He is a graduate from the Steinbeis Hochschule Berlin and holds a master of business administration from the University of Plymouth.

Germany: Aumund and Holcim have demonstrated an electric linear calcination conveyor (eLCC) at Aumund’s headquarters in Rheinberg, Germany. Initial tests of the eLCC have reportedly demonstrated efficient thermal activation of clay through a combination of radiant heat and material circulation. In 2020, Aumund Fördertechnik teamed up with Holcim for a project focused on the electrical calcination of clay using an Aumund pan conveyor.

The company stated that the eLCC system is fully enclosed and insulated, minimising energy requirements and heat loss, with its compact design allowing for expansion of production capacities. It can operate with electrical heating elements powered by 100% renewable energy sources like wind or solar. The first industrial plant utilising this technology will be constructed in 2025.

Germany: The European Cement Research Academy (ECRA) has elected Eric Bourdon as the chair of its Technical Advisory Committee. Hendrik Möller, Schwenk Deutschland and Samir Cairae, Titan Cement have also joined the organisation’s board of directors

Bourdon is the Deputy CEO, the Head of Industry and the Chief Climate Officer of Vicat. He joined the group in 2002 after working for thyssenkrupp Polysius. He is a graduate in engineering from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts et Métiers in Paris.

ECRA was founded in 2003. It supports and shares research by the cement sector in Europe. It is steered by its technical committee. Bourdon will work with ECRA managing director Martin Schneider on strengthening its work in strategic areas, including CO₂ capture and related technologies, as well as grinding and kiln technologies.

Germany: Heidelberg Materials has started the Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) Study phase on the GeZero project at its Milke plant in Geseke. The technical planning phase is being conducted by Fluor Corporation. It will focus on the design and integration of the various systems into the overall technical concept, which also includes a CO₂ transport solution. The technical planning is expected to be completed in mid-2025 with construction scheduled to start in 2026.

Christian Knell, CEO of Heidelberg Materials Germany, said “With GeZero, Heidelberg Materials will rely on CO₂ capture using state-of-the-art oxyfuel technology in combination with a CO₂ cleaning and liquefaction plant. To pave the way for domestic CCS plants, a CO₂ transport solution by rail is part of the planning until the necessary pipeline infrastructure is available. In addition, a local CO2 storage hub is to be created as interim storage. The electrical energy requirement for the operation of the plant is to be covered exclusively by renewable energies. A new photovoltaic system in the vicinity of the factory premises will help to meet the needs.”

The GeZero project is preparing to build a carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) value chain for the Geseke cement plant, North Rhine-Westphalia, in inland Germany. It aims to capture 0.7Mt/yr of CO₂ starting from 2029. The project is supported by the European Union Innovation Fund.