Kenneth Eriksson,
President and Group Executive Officer, SCA Forest Products
CERTIFIED GREEN ENERGY
Interview with Kenneth Eriksson
President and Group Executive Officer, SCA Forest Products
SCA is a global company that develops, produces, and markets personal care products, tissue, packaging, publications papers, and solid-wood products. It produces products in 40 countries and markets in some 90 countries. SCA manages 2.6 million hectares of forest land (the biggest in Europe) and is one of only a few companies in the world able to offer certified paper products based on totally chlorine-free pulp. Andritz delivered a new type of recovery boiler to SCA’s Östrand (Sweden) mill which started up in October 2006. We spoke with Kenneth Eriksson, President and Group Executive Officer of SCA’s Forest Products business area, about renewable energy and Andritz’s contribution.
Personal background
I was trained as a mechanical engineer and have been involved with the pulp and paper industry since 1971 when I began my career with MoDo Mekan (equipment division of MoDo Paper). I came to SCA’s Östrand mill in 1979 as a project manager and then became maintenance manager. I left the company for nine years to head up a company (the former Sunds Defibrator) that supplied process technology and production machinery to the industry. I rejoined SCA in 1995 as President of SCA Graphic Sundsvall (the pulp and papermaking units which produce publication papers) and in 2000 was named President of the Forest Products business.
The Östrand project
The Östrand mill is a very important part of the value chain from the forest to our customers. Our plans for the mill required additional recovery boiler capacity, and the old boiler had become a bottleneck. To rebuild the boiler would have forced us into a very long shutdown, and we could not have generated higher steam values with the old technology.
Our team traveled the world to investigate the most energy-efficient technologies. What we saw convinced us that a boiler at Östrand could go higher in temperature and pressure than anything that had been attempted before, so we put the challenge before Andritz.
We were very impressed with Andritz’s solutions. In addition to high steam production which improves our electricity yield, we wanted to get as much hot water production as possible. There are several unique features in this boiler to get the maximum energy from the black liquor biofuel.
After two years of work and a 150 million Euro investment, our new Andritz High Energy Recovery Boiler (HERB) enables us to generate 500 Gigawatt hours (GWh) of electrical energy per year. That is enough to make Östrand virtually energy self-sufficient.
The boiler was delivered exactly on time. The costs are all within line. And, we didn’t have one serious accident throughout the entire project. Andritz has done a very, very good job and has had excellent project management. We have to take our hats off to them and say we are very happy.
Compelling solutions
Andritz’s technical solutions for internal heat recovery were very compelling. We were convinced that the electricity yield would be high. But what really appealed to us about Andritz was the way they solved the boiler expansion challenge. Although the initial design capacity is 3,300 t/d at 515°C and 105 bar, it is currently operating at 2,500 t/d. In the future, it can be expanded to process 4,400 t/d at the same temperature and pressure. We were very impressed when Andritz proposed to expand the boiler by moving the sidewall, instead of the conventional approach of moving the front wall. It is clearly superior to what has been done before.
Black is green
Before the Andritz boiler started up, Östrand was producing 242 GWh of electricity. The new boiler and turbine-generator boosts this to 468 GWh. Since the energy is being generated from biomass, we earn Green Certificates, which bring additional economic credit for reducing CO2 emissions.
SCA is financing some rather futuristic research and development programs for energy technology, but I think the most important step we have seen so far is what we have achieved at Östrand – to increase the pressures and use well-developed technologies to get maximum energy from the black liquor. We are in a capital-intensive industry. We cannot jeopardize our economics on such an important part of our process with an unproven technology.
Energy challenge
The high electricity costs in Sweden helped to steer us toward the HERB technology. The price of electricity has tripled within the last four years. There is no way our global customers would allow us to pass these price increases on to them.
Energy will become more and more expensive. Oil will be less available in the future. What we see more of are integrated heat recovery systems. We have the possibility to capture the heat that our mill normally sends out into the air and into the water, and to use that in a good way for the local community. For example, our paper mill in Ortviken provides hot water to the city’s central heating system.