DS Smith (Dublin, Ireland) a leading provider of sustainable packaging solutions, and energy provider E.ON has today announced the signing of a major agreement to construct a state-of-the-art combined heat and power (CHP) facility at Kemsley Paper Mill in Kent.

The facility will replace the existing CHP and extend E.ON’s partnership at the site with DS Smith for the next 20 years. The facility has been specifically designed to set the standards in efficiency, sustainability and reliability. The new plant will enable a carbon reduction of 36,000mtpy. This is the equivalent of 30,000 medium-sized cars driving over 6000 miles1 a year.

Once complete, it will have an electrical capacity of c75MW, generating steam and power for DS Smith’s production processes at its flagship Kemsley Mill site. With 830kT of paper manufactured at the mill every year, the partnership will further improve resource efficiencies and contribute to DS Smith’s corporate goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 30% by 2030.

The program will be one of E.ON’s largest customer solutions projects in more than a decade. The energy company will finance, build and operate the CHP. The two-year construction phase of the CHP plant is due to start this year. The facility is planned for commission in 2021.