In his quest to save the planet, live wire engineer-entrepreneur Paul Gorremans has put his money where his mouth is and promotes steam technology in Gqeberha with a new state-of-the-art plant in Sidwell.
The Belgian inventor-designer and his Sustainable Heating team have built two 10-tonne wood chip boilers at Aspen Pharmacare’s Kempston Road premises and use them to generate round-the-clock steam energy.
A portion of the plant’s 20 tonnes per hour steam capacity is being channelled to Aspen and adjacent healthcare company Fresenius Kabi, which previously used carbon-heavy fuels to drive their manufacturing processes.
Speaking during a tour of the plant on Wednesday, Gorremans explained how the wood chips were collected and transferred to a pair of cavernous bays where top loaders raked them up into a giant furnace.
The hot air produced was used to heat borehole water injected into the system.
The resultant steam was then processed and dispatched through a spiderweb of boilers, filters and pipes.
Gorremans said the system provided benefits all round.
“The clients are happy because they are saving money; our steam is cheaper than what they can produce with heavy fuel oils or even light fuel oils.
“They are becoming greener and they don’t have to spend capital on the equipment and building.
“We burn 5,000m³ of wood a month but there is no smoke because we use the best available filters.
“The project will save about 520,000 tonnes of carbon emissions over our 15-year contract.
“If those emissions were condensed into a liquid, that’s the equivalent of 429km of 30-ton tanker trucks bumper to bumper from PE to Albertinia in the Western Cape.
“Aspen has given us this opportunity to provide steam not only to them but also Fresenius Kabi.
“Hopefully in the near future, Cadbury will join us.
“We don’t want to waste our natural resources and that’s why our focus is on a circular economy where waste generated is turned into a by-product that’s still useful.”
He said in line with this approach, the plant had already burnt 27,000 cubes of wood chips which were collected in the form of waste offcuts from various sawmills.
This includes Sustainable Heating’s own sawmill in the Langkloof.
“So far through the burning of that biomass, we have accumulated 160 cubes of ash, most of it sand. So that is just 0.6% ash residue which must go to landfill.
“I am proud of that efficiency.”
He said Sustainable Heating had already installed similar systems using renewable energy to produce heat in Bangladesh and Kenya, and 11 years ago it launched its first plant in SA, in KwaZulu-Natal.
“But we have increased the efficiency of this boiler by 2.5% compared to all our previous boilers by reclaiming hot flue gas air after the filter and mixing it with fresh air so that we can put hot air into the furnace instead of ambient air.”
Gorremans, 62, said his passion for alternative energy sources began in 1973 when the Belgian government for a period banned the use of cars on Sundays to meet the challenge posed by the first oil crisis.
“That was the first shock that woke me up to the reality that energy resources are limited.”
HeraldLIVE
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