FBR Summer 2023 - Flipbook - Page 15
Industry
ANDRITZ
News
Henrik Wikstedt, Vice-President, Recovery Boilers, ANDRITZ.
concerns, but also to improve energy
and production efficiencies. “The
last major investment at the mill in
the recovery boiler area was some
time ago,” said Leitgeb. “With the
Future Energy Project, we wanted to
install the very latest in technology to
maximise efficiencies, as well as reach
our environmental goals.”
As part of its investment at the
mill, Smurfit Kappa chose ANDRITZ
to supply a new HERB recovery boiler
and Mechanical Vapor Recompression
(MVR) plant to enhance its
implementation of sustainability
initiatives, as well as increase efficiency
and profitability.
“We chose ANDRITZ as we have a
long history of working together at
this mill and we were confident in the
technology and expert know-how it
could provide for a project of this scale.
When it came to the sales phase of
this project, ANDRITZ experts were
extremely flexible and easy to work
with. They understood exactly what
we needed from the start”, explained
Leitgeb.
Henrik Wikstedt, Vice-President,
Recovery Boilers, ANDRITZ, added,
“When the project was first being
talked about, the important factors
were that Smurfit Kappa needed high
energy efficiency and low emissions
for the recovery boiler and significantly
lower steam use for evaporation.
The MVR process is extremely
energy effective vs. multiple effect
evaporation plants.
“ANDRITZ had already been
involved quite heavily at the mill in the
recovery boiler and evaporation areas,
so we already had a lot of knowledge
about the details of the operation.
We were ready to help the customer
as and when they needed it. Also, we
were very familiar with regulations
and standards, meaning the customer
could be confident that the project
could go ahead with ANDRITZ strictly
adhering to any specific requirements
and, in this case, the standards were
set very high by Smurfit Kappa.”
New boiler at
nominal on first day
Contracts were signed in the Spring of
2018 and the project commenced with
the delivery of the pre-evaporation
units. The installation of the units was
completed by November, 2018, and
commissioning and take-over was
achieved in April, 2019. The recovery
boiler project proceeded immediately
after the installation of the preevaporation plant, the hydrotest was
completed by late December, 2019,
with take-over taking place at the end
of July, 2020.
“This was an extremely challenging
project for a number of reasons,”
stated Wikstedt. “The mill layout was
really tight, with the recovery boiler
being constructed on the site of the
former lime kiln. There were also
challenges with the pre-evaporation
unit that involved a complex layout in
an extremely narrow place.
“Added to this were Austrian rules
relating to the use of labour and, of
course, there was Covid-19, which
came along right in the middle of the
main part of the project.”
Despite all the challenges, the
project started on time. The new
Summer 2023 Forest Bioenergy Review
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