In August 2020, CTP / CTN Group signed a turnkey EPC contract with Secil Group for a new Waste Heat Recovery (WHR) System for the Portugal Outão Cement plant. The project offers an innovative and customized solution that generates electricity by recovering waste heat, working with thermal oil and organic rankine cycle.
Designed by CTP/CTN Group, the system aims to recover up to 29 MW of waste heat to feed a new ORC system equipped with a 7.2 MW of state-of-the-art axial turbine. The new WHR is expected to generate approximately 50 million of kWh per year, covering more than 30% of the current plant’s electricity needs. The first kW generation is scheduled for the second half of 2022.
From an environmental impact reduction perspective, the new WHR system alone will significantly reduce the cement production plant’s carbon footprint with a total of 14,000-tonnes equivalent CO2 per year. In addition, the system designed by CTP / CTN Group, which will be produced in Turkey, will prevent the use of groundwater and prevent water treatment costs and destruction of natural resources.
The WHR system is fully automatic, do not need the physical presence of operators during the daily operation. Thanks to this specific advantage, plus the total absence of water treatments in the process, the OPEX are reduced lower by 75% respect an equivalent WHR based on traditional Steam Rankine cycle; with the added advantage that the plant can run autonomously from remote based on a I4.0 technology.
The WHR Project is part of the SECIL Group’s R&D Clean Cement Line Project (CCL Project) carried out at the Outão cement plant in Portugal. The CCL Project aims to make the Outão cement plant stand out among European cement producers with its energy efficiency and low CO2 emissions. Part of the CCL Project is funded by the Portuguese Government 2020 incentive programme.
The new solution engineered by CTP / CTN Group easily integrates different heat sources to produce electricity:
• AQC boiler (on clinker cooler)
• PH Boiler (on kiln preheater)
• The new solar energy
This project is concrete step towards the path of carbon neutrality and energy transition targets of our client Secil Group supported by the CTP / CTN Group team.
Heat-to-energy & Solar Energy
Heat-to-energy systems play an active role in achieving the zero emission target with low carbon energy.
In the project realized in Portugal, the solar energy is integrated with the heat from the cement process. The 2,100 kWt energy gained from the solar energy system shows how the WHR systems developed by CTP / CTN Group can easily integrate different heat sources and generate electricity.
Solar Energy System is connected in parallel to the preheater boiler. Compared to previous WHR systems installed by CTP / CTN Group, this solution allows to reduce the amount of thermal oil in circulation. This shows how flexible the WHR system is. The contribution of the solar energy system will allow to further increasethe amount of zero carbon energy which will be used in the cement plant (Figure 1).
The designed innovative waste heat recovery system does not use our natural resources such as water and fossil sources. At the same time, this system aims to reduce CO2 emissions to zero and to generate 53.4 million kWh of energy annually by integrating the energy from the solar field.
In general, CTP/CTN develops the most appropriate design for a given situation in order to find the most efficient solution needed by the companies in the sector.