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Heat recovery system cuts energy use by 11% at Gatineau mill

An innovative heat recovery technology is now operational at Kruger Products’ Gatineau mill, which manufactures a wide range of tissue products for consumer and industrial use. This technology will lower the mill’s total energy consumption by 11% and CO2 emissions by 14.5% (10,000 tonnes per year), a reduction equivalent to removing 2,500 cars from the road or planting 1.3 million trees.

This $4.8-million project is one of several initiatives that Kruger Products has implemented as part of Sustainability 2015, the company’s five-year plan to reduce its environmental footprint. The project was financed in part by Québec’s Agence de l’efficacité énergétique, which granted $1.9 M in financial assistance through its Heavy Oil Consumption Reduction Program.

Kruger Products partnered with Thermal Energy International to develop and install the heat recovery technology. The central heat recovery system will capture hot, humid air from two of the mill’s three paper machines and reuse it to heat process water as well as the facility itself during the winter. Through the technology, the hot exhaust is pulled from the two paper machines and forced through an energy recuperation tower, into which water is sprayed. The energy is drawn from the exhausted air to the water. This water is filtered and circulated through separate heat exchangers to transfer the energy to the process. The third paper machine is already using heat recovery technology.