Energy aspects in paper mills utilising future technology

Developments in paper machinery have produced or are producing solutions to enhance water removal and improve paper properties. These include impingement drying and impulse technology. However, both methods also use energy in some other form than steam to bring about drying. On paper machines, where a large share of conventional drying is replaced with new technologies, the energy system should be reconstructed to achieve the increased power-to-heat ratio with better efficiency than with the conventional steam power plant. CHP-solutions based on diesel and gas turbine processes were compared against the steam boiler based process to assess their potential for increasing thermal efficiency in combined power and heat production. The calculated results confirm that the efficiency of heat and power production can be significantly increased in the selected cases by utilising either diesel or gas turbine technology.