Spilling helps Dutch industry in the energy transition
Hamburg/Zoetermeer. Six million tons less CO2 emissions in 2025, that is the ambitious goal of the Dutch initiative Project 6-25 for industry in the Netherlands. Project 6-25 is a cooperation between industrial companies, engineering companies, technology providers and financial institutions and targets the 300 most energy-intensive industries in the Netherlands. It covers all industrial sectors such as chemicals, petrochemicals, paper & glass, food, metals, etc.
Among the technology partners is the Hamburg-based company Spilling Technologies with its steam compressors. These are a type of industrial heat pump, which can make a significant contribution to achieving impressive savings in the area of process heat through steam recycling. In 2018, the Netherlands have created what it claims to be the most ambitious climate law in the world. By 2050, greenhouse gas emissions are to be reduced by 95 percent. The government plans to present new climate plans for this every five years. Dutch industry, for example, must halve its carbon dioxide emissions by 2030.
The government-supported Project 6-25 is led by consultants and managers from a wide range of industrial sectors. The initiative consists of a board, a steering group, a project team and various working groups.
Ambitious goals for Dutch industry
Business leaders and managers of Dutch industrial companies are facing the biggest challenges. Like everywhere else in the world, their plants require too much energy and raw materials. By 2030 they must halve carbon dioxide emissions. Less than ten years time and extremely demanding, considering that industry has to meet the expectations of stakeholders as well as environmental protection. Thus, in addition to profitability and return on investment, profitable production, satisfied customers, safety, reliability, availability, the highest quality standards or sustainability play an increasingly important role. How can this be achieved in a relatively short time? New energy concepts such as hydrogen or the material use of CO2 require many years of development and implementation. Green electricity is also not available in sufficient quantities in the foreseeable future. The only short-term option is to invest in improved energy efficiency of the plants in order to reduce costs and CO2 emissions in the long term.
The partners of Project 6-25 help to analyze the energy saving potential of industrial plants. They are familiar with the various reliable and proven technologies that will pay off in the medium to long term. They reliably determine the return on investment, mediate in financing issues and subsidy programs and accompany the implementation of short-term measures for improvement.
Full steam ahead against climate change
Spilling Technologies still uses the tried and tested operating principle of the steam piston engine today. In the meantime, a product portfolio has evolved from this that helps to save energy and CO2 to a considerable extent in all relevant branches of industry.
In Project 6-25, Spilling Technologies convinces with the Spilling steam compressor, a mechanical vapor recompressor (MVR) to raise the pressure level of otherwise unusable low-pressure steam. This might come for example from industrial cooling or drying, and is compressed to a higher level, so that it can be used again as process steam. In this way, considerable quantities of gas, oil or coal - and thus CO2 - can be saved in conventional steam boilers
The good adaptability of the Spilling piston compressor to a wide range of steam specifications, its good controllability over a wide control range and the high efficiency of the reciprocating engine principle make it an interesting alternative for many industrial companies.