Notice

IETF Phase 2, Autumn 2022: competition winners

Updated 15 May 2024

Applies to England, Northern Ireland and Wales

Project ID 24019 - Airbus Operations Limited

IETF grant offered: £1,117,501
Project costs: £3,192,861
Location: Broughton, Wales
Energy Efficiency deployment competition: Interim Paint Shop and Final Paint Shop heat recovery

The Airbus Broughton site is located in North Wales and is home to its A320 Family wing production facility. Wings are fully assembled, painted and equipped with flight control and fuel systems on site before being shipped to one of Airbus’ Final Assembly Lines. By 2026, Airbus expects to be producing 75 wingsets per month and is on track to reach that.

During this process, each wing undergoes two painting stages in two separate banks of painting booths: the Interim Paint Facility (IPF) and the Final Paint Facility (FPF). Painting the wings is one of the most energy intensive manufacturing processes on site. Both painting stages require the use of ventilated heated painting booths. In each booth, heated air is cycled through the painting area before being vented to the outside. The proposal of this project is to install heat recovery technology into each of the booths that would transfer heat from the hotter air being vented to cooler air entering, improving the energy efficiency of the process.

A feasibility study conducted in late 2022 evaluating the technical and economic potential for retrofit of heat recovery technology to reduce gas consumption in the IPF and FPF indicated this new installation could reduce energy consumption during the painting process by approximately 50%. One of the existing painting booths in the FPF has already been retrofitted with heat recovery technology, which has reduced energy consumption at this predicted rate.

As part of this project and with the support of the IETF funding, Airbus plans to roll out this technology to the remaining painting booths within both IPF and FPF banks in order to achieve significant savings in energy and CO2 emissions.

Mark Jackson, Head of Industrial Safety, Ergonomics and Sustainability, Manufacturing Engineering, Airbus Broughton, said: “The paint shop heat recovery project at our Broughton site will deliver an estimated 50% reduction in both energy usage and CO emissions in the facility, supporting Airbus’ ambition to pioneer sustainable aerospace for a safe and united world.

“The IETF fund is making a key contribution and will help ensure its viability and support the plant’s decarbonisation journey.”

Project ID 24025 - Ultra Tough Limited

IETF grant offered:  £155,133
Project costs:  £258,554
Location: Welham Green and Hatfield South
Study competition: Ultra tough waste heat to electricity feasibility study

Ultra Tough’s plant in Welham Green, Hertfordshide, supplies quality toughened glass to glass merchants and manufacturers of double glazed units used in doors, windows and conservatories. The process of glass toughening involves heating the glass sheets to a high temperature and then cooling it rapidly. This is very energy intensive.

In this feasibility study, the company is assessing the possibility of utilising the waste heat from the exhaust gases of the glass toughening furnaces and utilise it to produce electrical power which can be reused on-site to improve energy efficiency and reduce reliance on externally purchased energy.

The problem is challenging due to various practical constraints and operational requirements of the process, for example the cyclical nature of heating and cooling, the need to test the furnaces under varying load conditions to obtain reliable data, the physical distances between the heat sources and sinks, the distributed nature of heat from multiple furnaces, access requirements, etc, and would require careful consideration, engineering design and a bespoke solution. The aims of this feasibility study are to identify opportunities for energy savings and carbon reduction and gain a reasonable understanding of risks, costs of investments and resources required for the selected solutions.

The IETF feasibility study grant, combined with match-funding from the company’s corporate funds, will cover the cost of this project. The project is expected to provide significant reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and savings on the company’s gas consumption upon completion and will provide some level of immunity from rising gas prices.

Shai Divani, Chairman, Ultra Tough Limited, said: “We are eager to make toughened glass manufacturing a sustainable process for our planet and contribute to reaching the national net zero emissions target by 2050. We are leading the way of energy efficiency and decarbonisation for the glass toughening industry in the UK. The IETF grant from the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero is a vital resource for industries like ours which have limited disposable funds but are keen to put our environmental ambitions into practical action.”

Project ID 24054 – Saint-Gobain Glass

IETF grant offered: £90,232
Project costs: £180,464
Location: Eggborough
Study competition:  Glass carbon capture project

Saint-Gobain is a leading manufacturer of flat glass, including float, coated and laminated glass products. In the UK, located in Eggborough, East Yorkshire, Saint-Gobain operates a glass manufacturing facility producing over 200,000 tonnes of glass per year. As per typical glass manufacturing, the existing facility process consists of a large capacity furnace, which melts the raw materials at up to 1,500°C to produce glass. This melting process within the furnace results in the production of CO2. The Eggborough furnace was rebuilt in 2021 implementing the latest efficiency design that resulted in approx. 15% reduction in CO2 emissions per tonne of glass produced.

The Saint-Gobain Group set a 2050 target for decarbonisation and so the team at the Eggborough plant have been actively exploring opportunities to progress CO2 reduction. The development of a CO2 cluster in the neighbourhood provides an opportunity for the company to explore the reduction of the CO2 emissions through the Carbon Capture Usage and Storage (CCUS) route. This solution would be a first of a kind for the glass industry. The goal of the project at Eggborough, once implemented, would be to capture at least 85% of CO2 emitted from the furnace flue gases.

Saint-Gobain Glass UK Limited aims to submit a strong application to the future cluster sequencing phase to be able to deploy Carbon Capture technology at the site and find suitable means of transport of CO2 to one of the clusters where it can be stored under the sea bed. To do so, Saint-Gobain is planning to go through a broad feasibility study to select the best capture technology in consideration of multiple criteria such as the CO2 reduction, the cost, the solution maturity and the EHS risk.

Saint-Gobain has reached out to different engineering companies working in the CCUS field leading to the definition of the study objectives. The completion of the project with the support of a subcontractor will help Saint-Gobain decrease the project risk and the cost, and so have better chances to be approved in the next phases of the cluster sequencing program.

The project is to be funded partially by Saint-Gobain UK and by an Industrial Energy Transformation Fund (IETF) grant. This will allow the company to finance the work that will be performed in parallel by a specialised engineering subcontractor and Saint-Gobain employees from the central team and Eggborough plant.

Steve Severs, Managing Director, Saint-Gobain Glass United Kingdom & Ireland, said: “The implementation of carbon capture technology at the Eggborough manufacturing site would provide an enormous step forward towards decarbonising the glass making process. The IETF funding would provide the impetus to make this a reality and help drive us to a low carbon and ultimately to a zero carbon glass production facility making products which themselves can boost the carbon efficiency of the UK building and housing stock.”

Project ID 24079 – Bumble Hole Foods

IETF grant offered: £24,704
Project costs: £36,248
Location: Bromsgrove
Study competition: Energy efficiency and decarbonisation of industrial processes through heat pumps

The objective of this study is to investigate whether a heat pump(s) can be used to reduce the energy consumption and carbon emissions currently being generated by the steam boiler system as this will improve overall efficiency.

Replacing the steam system with a heat pump(s) could also allow for the site to become fully electrified. This will be important for the site to be able to achieve carbon neutrality and fully utilise the solar PV generation currently installed and planned for the future (with battery storage).

Technology overview and justification

The technology to be explored is the use of heat pump(s) to provide process heat to the pasteuriser and associated CIP/washing processes.

At present, process heat is provided by a centralised gas and gas oil-fired steam boiler system. The steam is generated and distributed throughout the site to various pieces of equipment where it is used for low temperature applications. The required operating temperatures for the pieces of equipment are:

• Pasteurisation: 70’C
• Hot water system: 60’C
• CIP systems: 70’C and 60’C
• Tray wash: 40’C

Heat pumps are capable of producing hot water up to 100’C with newer heat pumps now being able to generate steam. There have been numerous examples of this in industry and therefore this would be a suitable operating temperature for the process requirements.

The justification for the use of heat pump(s) as opposed to other technologies is that they have a higher efficiency compared to gas-fired alternatives such as condensing boilers or resistive electrical heating with COPs typically greater than 3.

They are also electrically powered and despite the electrical grid (0.21233kgCO2e) having a higher GHG emissions factor than natural gas (0.183kgCO2e), when taking into account the COP of a heat pump the overall energy input to produce the same energy output will be less and therefore overall less carbon emissions will be produced. As the grid continues to decarbonise then further carbon emissions will be offset.

Further to this, Bumble Hole Foods are striving to become carbon neutral and have invested in solar PV on their site with more planned for the future. By electrifying their site and utilising the solar PV generation it will help them become carbon neutral. Solar thermal has also been considered to reduce the need for natural gas however heat generation would be seasonal and require an additional heating source.

Technology Readiness Level

Large, industrial sized heat pumps can be used to provide low and medium temperature heat to processes by the use of renewable energy from air, water or ground but also waste energy from buildings and processes. Current heat pump technology is capable of providing heat up to 100°C with a spread between source and sink temperature of approximately 50’K per stage, up to 80’K.

There are numerous examples where large industrial heat pumps (heat pumps that exceed capacities of 100kW) have been successfully installed with the largest units providing 35MW.

Study Output

The feasibility study will aim to achieve the following outputs:

• Determine the current energy use associated to the gas-fired and gas-oil fired steam system
• Determine the energy requirements of the equipment that utilise the steam
• Determine the energy losses associated to the steam system
• Determine heat output requirements
• Evaluate site processes and mechanical design interfaces
• Evaluate site processes and electrical design interfaces
• Evaluate location, installation and logistics
• Evaluate site operation and control
• Develop an initial design proposal
• Environmental and sustainability evaluation
• Commercial viability analysis
• Evaluate project execution risk
• Scalability and Replicability study

Project ID 24081 - Plasmor Limited

IETF grant offered: £36,797
Project costs: £53,994
Location: North Humberside
Study competition: Energy recovery from rotary kiln exhaust using ORC

Project background

Plasmor Ltd manufactures a highly diverse range of building block products. A fundamental ingredient in the concrete produced by the company for its Concrete Building Block portfolio is Expanded Clay Aggregate, a sintered ultra-light weight clay ball, produced on the company’s own production facility.

Production of expanded clay aggregate is energy intensive and hence a major focus of the company to both minimise energy usage and optimise the environmental impact of expanded clay aggregate.

How the project works

To create the reaction where the raw clay feed stock changes its physical properties high processing temperatures, in excess of 1000oC, are required. The physical size and characteristics of the production equipment is restrictive to typical measures to insulate or minimise heat loss ultimately resulting in significant process energy losses. The larger proportion of energy losses are lost in the process air stream which is exhausted through the exhaust stack direct to atmosphere.

It is proposed to utilise the waste heat from the exhaust air flow by passing this through the heat exchanger of a generator to generate electricity to feed back into the operating demand of the production process.

The generator will be based on the thermodynamic concept of the Organic Rankine Cycle, ORC. Energy will be extracted from process waste and transferred into the working fluid of the ORC and used to drive a turbine coupled to a generator.

Impact of grant funding

The Industrial Energy Transformation Fund (IETF) grant will fund the joint research project between Engineers from Plasmor and consulting research company Envirya. Funding will enable technology research, partnered with operational experience, to produce a successful practical outcome.

Expected outcome

The research will deliver a feasibility assessment for the applicability of the ORC project. The anticipated outcome, having identified realistic deliverables, will include proposals from technology suppliers to move the concept to a realistic executable project.

James Marshall, Group Production Director, Plasmor Limited, said: “Process optimisation has always been a significant strategic goal at Plasmor Ltd, more recently this goal is not simply financially driven but also now environmentally focused.

“Our Expanded Clay Aggregate operation is an energy intensive process requiring significant levels of process heat, ultimately a significant percentage of which is released as waste through the process air stream.

“Waste heat recovery and usability is a new technology to the company and outside our capability to research. IETF funding awarded for the feasibility study to research recovery of the energy lost in this waste will enable future critical energy saving decisions to be made. Successful results and implementation will impact significantly on the operational costs of our process, whilst simultaneously reducing input energy requirements. Energy recovery and electricity generation will contribute to decarbonising our operations.”

Project ID 24085 - Plasmor Limited

IETF grant offered: £60,047
Project costs: £89,601
Location: North Humberside
Study competition: Carbon capture and utilisation from rotary kiln

Project background

Production of expanded clay aggregate is energy intensive and hence a major focus of the company to minimise energy usage and the environmental impact of expanded clay aggregate.

The production site where the project is proposed has facilities to produce Expanded Clay Aggregate and Concrete Building Blocks. This site supplies 4.2m m2 of building blocks annually to domestic and commercial construction projects throughout the East and South of England.

How the project works

In the production of Expanded Clay Aggregate, CO2 is released from the combustion of natural gas, used as the heat source and the organic properties of clay, the feed stock. All CO2 released from the process is currently discharged through the exit flue.

Carbon Capture technology is to be utilised to remove the CO2 from process flue gases prior to their release to the atmosphere. The captured carbon, without the need for costly post treatment and purification for subsequent use, will be utilised on the same production site to further enhance the properties of the concrete building block recipe design. Introduction of CO2 into the chemistry of the cementitious reaction in concrete has been shown to not only absorb CO2 but additionally enhance concrete’s properties, permanently locking away the CO2.

Impact of grant funding

The Industrial Energy Transformation Fund (IETF) grant will fund the joint research project between Engineers from Plasmor and consulting research company Envirya. Funding will enable technology research, partnered with operational experience, to produce a successful practical outcome.

Expected outcome

The research will deliver a feasibility assessment for the carbon capture and utilisation project. The anticipated outcome, having identified realistic deliverables, will include proposals from technology suppliers to move the concept to a realistic executable project. Successful implementation has the potential to remove 20,700 tonnes of CO2 per year from release into the atmosphere. Reduction of CO2 in construction is highly supportive of the UK’s roadmap to net zero.

James Marshall, Group Production Director, Plasmor Limited, said: “Capital investment for economic growth has been key to Plasmor’s success. To sustain continued growth environmental challenges, present and future, are high on the company’s corporate agenda.

“Investment in our own Expanded Clay Aggregate operation in 1999 gave the company a significant competitive advantage. Our own Expanded clay aggregate is today a main constituent ingredient in all the concrete building blocks we produce. Present environmental operating constraints, particularly the release of CO2, from this process is proving to be challenging both financially and operationally.

“Known technology, although not readily scalable, exists to mitigate environmental impact of CO2 released from the expanded clay aggregate process. This technology and resources to research its applicability are beyond the levels of company capability and available capital.

“IETF funding awarded for the feasibility study for removal of CO2 from one of our kilns exhaust streams and utilise this CO2 in our core business, production of concrete building products, without the costs inherent to CO2 storage, offers significant future security for our operations.

“Decarbonising one of the main constituent ingredients in our concrete is highly supportive of current UK targets to decarbonise the construction industry and promotes achievement of net zero.”

Project ID 24096 - KP Snacks Limited

IETF grant offered: £418,488
Project costs: £677,961
Location:  Billingham
Study competition:  Fuel switch to H2 for heating equipment targeting decarbonisation in the food sector

KP Snacks recognises that the world needs to act now to reach net zero and has committed to tough targets for reducing its emissions. The company knows it has a challenge around reducing Scope 1 emissions as its processes are currently reliant on Natural Gas to control temperatures accurately and efficiently in its equipment, which is where the IETF support is key. The Industrial Energy Transformation Fund (IETF) has given the company the opportunity to join up with the additional expertise and collaborative partners required to understand its route to a significant reduction in emissions through fuel switching.

The study will seek to develop a techno-economic model from which necessary investment decisions and future plans can be made regarding fuel switching its current production lines (fryer heat exchangers) from Natural Gas to Hydrogen in order to meet KP Snacks’ net zero ambition. Working alongside technical experts from Teesside University, bp, Saacke Combustion Services, Heat & Control and Intellect, the company’s main objective is to investigate two main scenarios regarding fuel switching to hydrogen:

1. Determine the amount of hydrogen percentage that can be blended with Natural Gas into its existing fryers before any adjustments are required to the burner control systems. This percentage blend is to be achieved whilst maintaining efficiency and power demands, offering reduced emissions.
   
2. Investigate what equipment modifications and associated operational/safety procedures measures are required and the cost implications involved with switching the current production lines to 100% hydrogen.

A techno-economic toolset will be developed that will enable the company to assess the use of either hydrogen blends or 100% hydrogen. The study will develop conceptual engineering designs to calibrate the model as close as possible to a real case deployment as well as providing an in-depth understanding of H&S requirements, hydrogen supply to the site (with a storage solution if required), hydrogen blending methodology along with an economic assessment for all areas.

The study will focus on its Teesside production facility, but with collaboration from the company’s other 6 production sites in the UK, all completed with the aim to move to a controlled production trial if proven feasible through the study.

A company spokesperson said: “KP Snacks are committed to making a better world for generations to come and recognise that the Climate Crisis is here and needs action now. We take the need for decarbonisation seriously and recognise that reducing our reliance on Natural Gas is essential but with some significant technical challenges. The IETF has given us the opportunity to collaborate with like-minded experts to develop a model for hydrogen use in our process and allow us to be at the front of that technical challenge.”