Industry News


ANDRITZ/UPM Schongau


We need to protect what we have


When you’ve been in business for 130 years, you learn a few things about adapting to change. So when Germany introduced new emissions targets, UPM’s Schongau mill stayed ahead of the game with a major upgrade of its bubbling fluidized bed (BFB) boiler. Welcome to futureproofing.


O


riginally built in 1887, UPM’s newsprint and supercalendered magazine paper mill in Schongau,


Bavaria, Germany, has been taking the environment seriously for a long time. Schongau was already deinking


wastepaper in the early 1960s. Today, it has FSC, PEFC, EU Ecolabel, and German Blue Angel Ecolabel certification, as well as being ISO 14001 Environmental Management System and EMAS Eco-management and Audit Scheme accredited. On the energy side, Energy Management Systems ISO50001 and EN16001 are also in force. Schongau also typically recovers and uses or sells 97% of its waste as a product. UPM Schongau’s Project Engineer,


Peter Frömmrich, was involved with this project from start to finish and he


14 Forest Bioenergy Review Summer 2019


insists, “We need to protect what we have in the world. We have beautiful nature around our mill.”


Standing the test of time In order not just to meet, but continue to beat, its environmental obligations, UPM Schongau took action when Germany lowered the national NOx emission limits for waste incineration plants. The mill’s bubbling fluidized bed (BFB) boiler, which ANDRITZ originally supplied in the late 1980s, either had to be replaced or significantly upgraded. UPM went with ANDRITZ again and decided to upgrade. Frömmrich says, “We did consider replacing the whole thing, but it’s a really solid boiler and still in good condition.” The wide-ranging 4.5-million Euro project resulted in a staged


combustion concept, optimized air staging, improved bed fluidization, finer bed ash, and better combustion control.


So did it beat the targets? Dr. Ulrich Hohenwarter, Director Global Sales & Products for ANDRITZ’s Power Plant Service, was also heavily involved right from the start, and he admits it wasn’t easy. But with the right equipment, control parameters, fuel mix and – crucially – trust between UPM Schongau and ANDRITZ, the upgraded plant’s steam output and emissions are still ahead of the game. Even though UPM Schongau’s BFB boiler is now almost 30 years old, its NOx emissions were brought clearly below the targets. Under the previous government limit of 200 mg NOx (at 11% O2), the boiler had been emitting


170-190 mg NOx. Frömmrich said that “It exceeded my expectations. It was really very good.”


A short timescale The installation of the new equipment and control system was carried out during a month-long shutdown during the summer of 2016, with handover in December 2016. Final refinements took place at the start of this year. Frömmrich points out that the short


timescale of the work was one of the key aspects of the project, which also involved a full suite of maintenance work around the boiler area. “This was a technically-demanding project to meet environmental targets on a tight timescale. We had to do a lot of preparation work and planning the timing was crucial. There was no room for error. We had to work multiple


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