CHP shrinks emissions, costs and boosts reliability for manufacturer

A major player in the plastics and recycling industries was exploring how to improve their energy supply for their recycling processes.

Operations involved grinding up and chipping plastic into shreds before cleaning and processing. This required a lot of power, as well as heat to clean the plastic - with no room for interruptions.

With local power supply unable to provide the answer, mounting energy bills and an elevated carbon footprint, other energy solutions needed to be investigated.

We work closely with our customers to find the best possible answer as every project is different. On this occasion, we carried out extensive infrastructure work that allowed us to switch the power supply from diesel to a much greener gas solution.

Our combined heat and power (CHP) equipment would allow our customer to repurpose heat generated from the two 1.1 MW gas generators, via a steam boiler, that would provide the power supply. This has far less impact on the environment than the previous diesel-powered package the customer was relying on.

We weren’t finished yet. We installed a new gas main that ensured consistent supply, as well as new cabling and cable trays and a brand-new switchboard to feed into.

By harnessing previously wasted heat/steam, this would also lower costs for our customer.

Replacing the site’s diesel generators with a gas-powered CHP system meant that carbon emissions were shrunk, along with their energy bills.

The steam recovered by the CHP system was used for the customer’s recycling processes. Specifically, the steam is used to clean the chipped and shredded plastic – a far more efficient method than was used previously. Not only that, but it does it at a fraction of the cost.