Located in Yen Phong district – Bac Ninh, Duc Huynh Paper Manufacturer is a small-medium business. But with the characteristic of a paper producer operating 3 shifts per day, the average power consumption of the facility is quite high. According to investigation, the business consumes more than 90,000 kWh and about 68 tons of coal per month.

According to Mr. Ngo Duc Hao, the Director, the main materials for production are paper pulp, waste paper and recycled paper which are used to produce toilet and color paper. So the production process has many stages, which not only consume much energy but also pollute the environment.

With the operating capacity of 240-250 tons of product per month, each ton requires 385 kWh of power and 283 kg of coal, the total energy cost is more than VND100 million each month. This is a very high cost to a small facility.

Only with 4 simple solutions including: improving the lighting system, disposing of and replacing motors with speed regulator, re-using condensed water and rearranging paper pulp containers, the company has saved more than VND130 million each year. At present, company leaders with technical experts are studying efficient energy saving solutions.

Commonly, the process of turning waste and recycled paper into the final product has 10 stages including classification, drying, filtering, rolling, etc. The demand for energy consumption of each facility is different depending on the production characteristic. Silk paper facilities consume about 776 kWh of power, 740 kg of coal and 200-230 m3 of water daily. Wrap paper facilities have higher energy consumption which is 1,500 kWh, 880 kg of coal and 600-700 m3 of water.

With the lighting system, the replacement of incandescent bulbs with 17W – 32W compact fluorescent bulbs has helped the company save more than 4,600 kWh per year, equivalent to VND450,000. With the market price plus annual replacement and maintenance costs, it has been estimated that the initial investment is only VND800,000 which can be retrieved in 2 months while the life of compact bulbs is up to 8000 hours. Clearly, the benefit from this solution is huge and lasting.   

The company has made the pilot replacement of motors with speed regulator at silk paper and color paper workshops. At the silk paper workshop, with the operation time of 24 hours per day and 330 days per year, the motor can help the workshop save 2,600 kWh, equivalent to VND20.6 million annually. With the same capacity, the motor at the color paper workshop can save 4,900 kWh, equivalent to VND4.9 million. These solutions require big initial capital, more than VND10 million for each motor, but the payback period is quite short, from 2 to 6 months.

The drying stage before packaging requires a lot of energy and coals. Recovering water from condenser not only saves energy but also reduces waste water. Before the condensation water recovering device was installed, it was estimated that the company could save more than VND35 million per year, but in fact, the company can save much more than that, about VND72 million.

Finally, rearranging paper pulp containers has saved VND12 million per year. The initial capital is VND5 million and can be retrieved in 5 months.

Beside technical solutions which have been applied according to energy experts, the company also has some solutions of its own to save energy without much investment such as: using natural light by installing transparent rooftops, improving lighting by enhancing the current lighting system with reflective mirrors. According to statistics of PESME project, all the energy saving solutions applied at Duc Huynh have reduced 200 tons of CO2 emission annually.

By Minh Duc