2023-10-24 09:30:44
Novacarb is a company belonging to the Humens group, which manufactures and formulates products of mineral origin for manufacturers and individuals. Located in Laneuveville-devant-Nancy in Lorraine, the Novacarb chemical factory produces and markets sodium bicarbonate and sodium carbonate. The company is implementing major actions to move away from the use of coal in the short term.
Novacarb has established an industrial activity manufacturing soda ash and bicarbonate of soda for over 150 years. Its location in Lorraine is linked to the raw materials necessary for the manufacture of carbonate and bicarbonate of soda, namely salt, extracted from the Lorraine subsoil, and limestone, extracted from a mine also located in Lorraine and of which Novacarb is the owner. . The manufacture of soda ash and bicarbonate of soda requires a lot of energy, which until now was mainly produced using coal, which made industrial activity very emitting CO2.
Simon Maget, energy manager at Novacarb, detailed for Engineering Techniques the actions implemented by the company Novacarb to no longer use coal, and to improve the energy efficiency of the processes used in the Laneuveville factory – in front of Nancy
Engineering Techniques: Tell us regarding the energy processes used within the chemical plant operated by Novacarb to mass produce soda ash and bicarbonate of soda.
Simon Maget: The chemical process necessary to make baking soda is energy-intensive. Historically, this energy was produced using coal extracted from the Lorraine subsoil. However, coal has not been extracted in Lorraine for more than fifty years, so we have been sourcing our products from South Africa and South America since then.
Novacarb’s energy transition, undertaken for around ten years on our site, consists of implementing projects to move away from the use of coal, it being understood that the latter does not constitute an energy of the future.
What actions have you put in place to make this exit from coal a reality?
To change our energy mix and no longer use coal, since May 2023 we have started a biomass cogeneration plant in partnership with Engie, which allowed us to shut down the coal boilers present on the site. This equates to a 35% reduction in our plant’s coal consumption. This project, initiated six years ago, was linked at the time to a call for tenders from the Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE) on the implementation of biomass cogeneration, to which we applied.
Then, with a view to a complete exit from coal, the construction of a second factory backed by our Nancy site has just started (in September 2023). This CSR (solid recovered fuel) recovery plant, which will be owned by Suez, will allow Novacarb to completely exit coal. CSR are refusals from sorting centers, agglomerates from bulky items such as sofas or armchairs for example. Today, at the territorial level, the master plans limit the burial of these CSR, to encourage, in particular, their energy recovery. There is therefore today in France a CSR energy recovery sector which is being set up, with projects being put in place, including ours.
These two large-scale projects, supported by the State, will allow the factory to move from an energy mix which consisted of 80% coal and 20% gas before 2023, to energy production on January 1 2026 (end of construction of the CSR power plant), coming from one third of biomass, one third of CSR and one third of gas.
Novacarb is also implementing actions to improve the energy efficiency of the processes used in its factory. Can you introduce them to us?
We are implementing other projects to improve the energy efficiency of our factory. This concerns in particular the electrification of certain processes. So, we use a lot of energy to compress the gases used in our processes. We historically used old compressors that run on steam (provided by coal), which we replaced with motor compressors, which use electricity as an energy vector. This change is linked to the current shift in the energy mix, and their higher efficiency allows us to improve the overall energy efficiency of the process.
This project was subsidized as part of France Relance. The machine was commissioned last year and reached full capacity in June 2023, for an investment of around five million euros.
What other actions have been implemented?
Still on the energy efficiency aspect, we are implementing around ten other projects. These projects will, for example, materialize through the change in technology on distillation trays, the recycling of hot condensates or even the renovation of insulation on rotary kilns, among others. These projects represent smaller investments than those linked to the phase-out of coal, but together they can considerably improve the overall energy efficiency of industrial activity on our site.
Have the calls for projects set up at the national level on the subjects of decarbonization and energy efficiency motivated the implementation of the actions that you have just mentioned?
From the moment there are subsidies, this accelerates the projects. But these subsidies do not lead to a reduction in our investments: it allows us to carry out more actions, because our investment remains the same. Subsidies therefore constitute more of an accelerator, especially since calls for projects take place over a fairly short period of time, so you have to be able to make decisions to position yourself quickly.
How is the return on investment calculated for Novacarb following the implementation of these large-scale projects?
On this type of project, we must not think in terms of return on investment but rather as a territorial project. On the two large-scale projects linked to the exit from coal, we have partners with whom we have set up long-term contracts.
For the supply of steam, for example, Novacarb becomes the sole customer for all the heat that will be produced on the site.
This makes it possible, among other things, to structure the territory in terms of waste collection. On biomass and CSR projects, materials are collected locally. For example, we have set up a partnership with the SNCF to collect some of the used railway sleepers. There is therefore, in the implementation of these projects, the desire to develop local partnerships, over the long term.
Comments collected by Pierre Thouverez
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