Opens eco-friendly plant

Thursday 13 February sees the official opening of Borregaard’s new biological purification plant. Not only will the plant bring Borregaard’s emissions of organic material down to a historically low level, it is also one of the largest biogas facilities in Norway.

"The Eco-friendly plant lives up to its name. In addition to substantially reducing emissions to water, it provides green energy in the form of biogas to replace fossil fuels for the drying of lignin. This again means a significant CO2 reduction from our processes," said Borregaard’s President and CEO Per A. Sørlie.

Historically low emissions to water
The biological purification plant is located at Borregaard’s biorefinery in Sarpsborg and purifies process water before it is emitted. Borregaard’s emissions of organic material, measured as chemical oxygen demand (COD), were 76 tons per day in 2013. The eco-friendly plant started up in autumn 2013 and from 2014 is expected to reduce emissions to a historically low level, equivalent to 69 tons per day. 

The biological purification plant is designed for high capacity and a high degree of degradation. The facility is free of legionella and meets new licensing requirements for emissions to water.

Reduced emissions to air
The biogas produced in the biological purification replaces fossil fuels in parts of the production process and corresponds to 35 GWh annually. This alone provides a CO2 reduction of over 8,000 tons, in addition to reducing emissions of SO2 and NOx.  

Borregaard has received NOK 30 million in funding from ENOVA for the construction of the eco-friendly plant, which has had a total cost of around NOK 240 million. Nils Kristian Nakstad, CEO of ENOVA, will perform the official opening of the facility.

NOK 2 billion in environmental investments
Over the past 20 years, Borregaard has spent NOK 2 billion on various eco-friendly investments. In the last 13 years, Borregaard in Sarpsborg has focused on an energy strategy with the aim of replacing the use of heavy oil with more climate-friendly and environmentally-friendly energy sources. Borregaard currently meets its regular energy needs with green sources such as energy recovery from waste, bio-energy and electricity. During periods of very cold weather or extra energy-intensive production, more energy is needed than normal. At such times natural gas is used as an energy source and today Borregaard is completely independent of heavy oil in its production.