The VELUX factories consume comparatively small amounts of energy in the form of oil and natural gas in the actual manufacturing process.
Wood chips from production reduce energy consumption by more than 60%
VELUX has installed wood-chips fired boiler units at many of its factories.
They supplement existing plants and are used to heat buildings, produce hot water and process heat.
The plant at Sonnenborn, Germany:
In 2006, a wood-chips fired boiler unit was installed to supplement the oil-fired furnace at the VELUX factory at Sonnenborn in Germany. When the factory processes its timber, waste chips are sorted and stored in silos that can contain enough for several days’ fuel. They are transported to the bolier unit through pipes over the ground. To make room for the new plant, a new building was erected for the technical installations. They include two boilers with a capacity of 2.5 megawatt each. Each boiler is equipped with a cyclone separator that cleans the flue gases. Outside the building the flue gases from the two boilers are collected and led through a filter. From there the cleaned fume is led into the open air through an almost 20-metre-high chimney.
So far the project has saved 1,000 tons of CO2 a year.
The plan for the coming years is to optimise the buildings, the heating system and the extraction so that the wood-chip fired boiler can make the factories almost self-sufficient in heating energy.
Over the next few years, VELUX will establish more chip-fired bolier units that are expected to bring about significant reductions in CO2 emissions.