Aalborg Portland – Utilization of surplus heat from industry

Aalborg Portland, founded in 1889, is one of the most advanced cement production facilities in the world today, annually producing 2.4 million tons cement using up around 2% of the national electricity consumption in Denmark.

The production company has delivered surplus heat to district heating grid of Aalborg supply company since the 1990’s and thereby supplying more than 25.000 households in the city of Aalborg. Surplus heat from industrial processes are considered as renewable energy in Denmark as it is excess heat from an existing process. Besides delivering heat from the cement production to the district heating grid, Aalborg Portland has also initiated a project on delivering district cooling for a new big hospital in Aalborg.

Aalborg Portland are also replacing coal as a fuel for production of cement with energy from waste incineration or biogas combustion to lower their CO2-emissions and they are trying to identify areas suitable for energy efficiency initiatives for saving electricity. The company is also investigating the possibilities for carbon capture and storage (CCS) to reduce their emissions. Processes like producing cement requires lots of energy and high temperatures and cannot be electrified. Therefore, there are huge amounts of energy to be saved if the processes are optimized and the fuel consumption reduced. In 2020, the company implemented a new internal heat distribution system reusing the heat from oven to oven, saving approximately 30 GWh per year, corresponding to the heat consumption of 7.800 Danish households. They are also reusing raw materials and waste from the production as well as recycling process water for cooling purposes.