Displaying items by tag: Power Plant

Pakistan: Lucky Cement plans to install a 34MW solar power plant at its Pezu power plant in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The Balochistan Times newspaper has reported that the 48GWh/yr installation will be equipped with a 5.59MWh Reflex energy storage system. Both the power plant and energy system will be the country’s largest when commissioned. Fossil fuel generation will remain online, but be shut down in the daytime, saving 26,600t/yr of CO₂ emissions.

India: RCCPL, a subsidiary of Birla Corporation, has commenced cement despatches from its 2.7M/yr Mukutban cement plant in Maharashtra. The plant has a further grinding capacity of 1.2Mt/yr and a 40MW captive power plant. Switzerland-based ABB previously delivered electrification and automation systems to the site of the new plant in June 2020.

Canada: Lafarge Canada is supplying its ECOPact reduced-CO₂ concrete to contractor PCL for its construction of the upcoming Genesee power plant in Alberta.

Lafarge North America president and general manager Prez Skiba said "The original concrete proposed was already a low carbon design, but we knew we could take it further. We brought in further emissions reductions with our ECOPact design, and we were able to reduce embodied CO₂ by an additional 20%. That's 20% over and above the original design, which already offered a 20% reduction. The combined 36% CO₂ reduction is equivalent to the energy used by 70 houses in a year."

India: Ramco Cements plans to commission a new 2.5Mt/yr clinker production line at its new plant near Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh in February 2022. A 1Mt/yr grinding unit, 12MW waste heat recovery system and 18MW captive power unit at the plant are expected to be commissioned in the 2022 – 2023 financial year, which starts in April 2022.

The cement producer also intends to commission at upgrade to its Nagar cement plant in the 2023 – 2024 financial year. The US$63m project includes installing a new 300t/day kiln at the plant in Tamil Nadu.

India: Birla Corporation has started the kiln at its new 3.9Mt/yr Mukutban cement plant at Nagpur in Maharashtra. The project had an investment of around US$370m and the plant will be run by subsidiary RCCPL. Birla Corporation said that the new plant is the group’s fourth integrated plant and the biggest single cement production line in Maharashtra by capacity. It will be powered by two 20MW captive power plants that use air-cooled condenser technology to reduce water consumption by 90%. The plant was partly built using the group’s MP Birla Cement Perfect Plus product, a Portland Pozzolana Cement, composed of 30 - 35% fly ash, itself a by-product of thermal power plants. Use of fly ash and slag will be scaled up at the site as production ramps up.

“It is no mean feat to complete such a large project under such challenging circumstances with major disruptions on account of Covid-19 which led to several logistical challenges, stoppage of work and a flight of labour from the project site on several occasions,” said Harsh V Lodha, the chair of Birla Group. “Moreover, to achieve 10m man hours of construction with zero accidents and completion of the entire project without a single major accident or fatality, I am told, is a unique achievement in the cement industry.”

Montenegro: State-owned energy supplier Elektroprivreda Crne Gore (EPCG) has proposed the gradual shutdown of its Pljevlja coal-fired plant and its replacement with a new cement plant. The company said that such a plant would eliminate Montenegro’s 750,000 – 800,000t/yr of cement imports.

The first stage of the Pljevlja power plant’s shutdown will only commence once a replacement power facility is online. Currently, the plant supplies 40% of the country’s energy. Its closure is part of Montenegro’s plan to accede to the EU as soon as 2025.

Nigeria: Finland-based Wärtsilä has secured another contract for the supply of a 70MW dual-fuel gas-fired power plant to BUA Cement, this time for the upcoming Line 3 of its Obu cement plant in Edo state. The Sun newspaper has reported that the line and a new fourth line at Sokoto cement plant will bring the company’s total cement capacity to 17Mt/yr when commissioned in 2022. BUA Cement is scheduled to commission the Sokoto cement plant’s new Line 3 in November 2021.

Chair Abdul Samad Rabiu said “Currently, we have phased out the use of coal across our factories and are now shifting to gas-powered plants. As we ramp up our capacity, there is need to complement it with efficient power supply and Wärtsilä’s technology has been found to be durable and uniquely aligned with our vision for more efficient power generation at all our production locations.”

Austria: W&P Zement says that it has commissioned an expanded 18GWh Wietersdorf hydroelectric power plant chain on the River Görtschitz in Carinthia. The chain consists of two new power plants and an existing one which the company optimised during a Euro12m project begun in October 2019. Together, the plants will supply 25% of the producer’s Wietersdorf cement plant’s electricity needs.

Technical director Florian Salzer said “With six modern Francis turbines, 18GWh of green electricity are generated in three power plants along the Görtschitz.” He added “That roughly corresponds to the supply for 3600 four-person households.”

Japan: Taiheiyo Cement plans to secure a captive power supply for its Saitama cement plant through the installation of a new gas-powered generator. The company says that electricity from the generator will replace purchased energy in the plant's operations. It is also in the process of constructing a new waste heat recovery (WHR) power unit at the facility. Taiheiyo Cement claims that both upgrades will result in a 62,000t/yr reduction in operations' CO₂ footprint. Construction is due to commence before 2022 in order for the producer to commission the new equipment in mid-to-late 2023.

Saitama cement plant's former coal and woodchip-powered generator exploded in April 2021. The producer said that work is on-going to prevent the incident's recurrence by investigating the causes of the accident and formulating preventative measures.

US: LafargeHolcimUS and its subsidiary Geocycle have successfully completed a barge shipment of 2000t of reclaimed bottom ash and fly ash from a pond at CenterPoint Energy’s AB Brown coal-fired power plant at Evansville in Indiana. The delivery is the first under a new 6Mt multi-year coal ash recycling contract with the energy provider.

LafargeHolcim US will use the coal ash to replace clay and sand in cement production at its Ste. Genevieve cement plant in Missouri. The producer says that this will help to reduce the plant's consumption of raw materials. LafargeHolcim US and Geocycle have invested US$80m in infrastructure to extract, process, transport, store and recycle ash from the power plant. Geocycle has managed the on-going joint recycling initiative between LafargeHolcim and CenterPoint Energy since 2009.

LafargeHolcim US's chief executive officer Toufic Tabbara said “This milestone is a tangible example of how industry participants together can develop creative and efficient solutions that contribute to the circular economy. Together, LafargeHolcim, Geocycle and CenterPoint Energy will avoid landfilling for power plants and reduce the consumption of non-renewable raw materials. This is a clear win-win for people and our planet.”