FEVE’ future made clear webinar on the Furnace of the Future sustainability project as well as the decarbonisation steps the glass industry needs to take hosted by Adeline Farrelly joined by Ardagh Glass CEO Martin Petersson and FEVE's Fabrice Rivet.
Mr Petersson described the Furnace for the Future project as a true industry collaboration, with Ardagh working alongside with 19 other glass manufacturers which represents 90% of total glass container production in Europe.“Together our collective technical expertise and skills will be used to bring this sector level transition to the low carbon economy and we will share the know how to produce climate neutral packaging… Our priority is to work on the melting technologies we currently use. We are looking to invert the fuel balance from today’s 80% gas and 20% electricity, to 20% gas and 80% renewable electricity with CO2 savings of 50% plus.”
Martin Petersson, Glass CEO
He added it will be the first time that all the elements of electric melting will be put together on this scale of industrial production. If an application for funding is successful the furnace will be built in 2022 and first glass produced in 2023.
The furnace will be built at Ardagh’s Obernkirchen, Germany plant which already has the required electricity grid connection needed for the project.
Fabrice Rivet’ FEVE’s Technical Director then outlined some of the challenges facing the project. The furnace will be deemed a hybrid furnace because, while most of it will be supplied by renewable electricity, a small amount of natural gas will be required.
Out of more than 300 applications for funding from the EU, the Furnace for the Future project was one of only 70 which had made it through to the final stage of application.
Just 10 of these will be awarded funding and a final decision on successful applications is due at the beginning of November.
Mr Rivet also attended Furnaces international organized event: Future of Furnaces where he discussed , in his presentation, ‘Securing our Industry’s Future: Towards Climate-Neutral Container Glass’. The keynote speaker spoke of the glass industries goal towards carbon neutrality, focusing on the importance of electricity as a replacement to fossil fuels.
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