Lucart Castelnuovo Inaugurates Valmet Cogeneration System at Tissue Mill

 

The Lucart Castelnuovo di Garfagnana tissue mill in Italy, part of the Lucart Group, has officially inaugurated its first Cogeneration system with Integrated EcoRecovery system, developed and supplied by Valmet (Finland). The installation is part of Lucart Group's EUR 4 million investment for upgrading the mill.

 

 

The cogeneration system integrates a gas turbine with a yankee hood air system and a waste heat steam generator, covering all the electricity and steam needs of the site. This way the gas turbine flue gases are used to dry the paper without any further gas consumption. The system improves the energy efficiency and reduces greenhouse gas emissions significantly. In addition, drying costs in tissue production are decreased significantly.

 

Valmet's solution was a perfect match with Lucart Group's objectives. "The Integrated Cogeneration technology is totally consistent with our company mission, which focuses on environmental sustainability and respect. Furthermore, we have appreciated Valmet's capability in finding and sharing possible solutions—Valmet people were always there when we needed it and this made a difference," said Franco Pasquini, engineering director of Lucart.

In his introduction speech at the opening ceremony, Luigino Furlan, VP, DCD Technology Unit of Valmet, highlighted how the success of this project is due greatly to the teamwork between Lucart and Valmet. "The people who envisioned, shared, built, and implemented this project and the special relationship established between the teams, represent the corner stones for this achievement. Mutual trust between Lucart and Valmet has been established and the path to continued partnership is paved," Furlan said in his speech.

The Cogeneration equipment supplied by Valmet includes a new air system with fans, burners, dampers, ducting, and instrumentation for the existing hood. The delivery also incudes a heat recovery steam generator, an air/air heat recovery, and an air/water heat recovery system.

Valmet notes that the results of the installation are remarkable. Using its exhaust fumes, the cogeneration gas turbine performs all of the drying for the entire tissue production, covering the thermal energy of the hood air system (with burners off) and producing steam needed for the yankee cylinder.

The cogeneration system will reduce natural gas consumption by 15% - 20% per year, which correlates to an estimated reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by 7,000 metric tpy as well as NOx to air by 3.5 metric tpy.

The Lucart Group operates six paper mills, including 10 paper machines and 54 converting lines. The company employs 1.200 people and has a yearly production of 300.000 metric tons of paper and a turnover of EUR 400 million per year.