The Italian company Zuccato Energia has started an ORC system for an industrial process at the Vetreria di Borgonovo glass factory in Piacenza, Italy.

The factory, which covers 52,000m2, produces about 4,000 tonnes of glass per year using two modern melting furnaces.

The system realized involves the operation of an ORC (Organic Rankine Cycle) module that produces up to 200 kW of electricity, recovering 1400 kW thermal from the furnace’s fumes, the ZE-200-LT module.

The module recovery the waste heat and through a close process produces clean electricity to use in the overall plant. The electricity production is zero emissions: the glasswork can avoid 274 TOE and 376 tonnes of CO2 per year.

The recovery is carried out employing a heat exchanger which intercepts the fumes from the furnaces and uses them to heat some water, the vector fluid necessary for the operation of the ORC system.

The fumes are cooled from a temperature of about 450° C up to 200°C while on the secondary side of the heat exchanger, pressurized water circulates at 10 bar at 140°C, which thanks to the heat of the fumes is heated up to 160° C.

Alessandro Zuccato, CEO of Zuccato Energia, said: “We are pleased to start installations on industrial processes to enable companies to be more eco-sustainable.

“At the same time, the company can reduce their economic impact allowing them to exploit their waste and to convert them into electricity.

“ORC technology has proved to be excellent in heat recovery from melting furnaces with high flexibility and minimal maintenance requirements. We look forward to cooperating with other glass factories”.

Waste heat recovery through ORC technology becomes the means to achieve the goal of environmental sustainability: recovering heat at medium and low temperatures indeed, allows to reduce the environmental impact of industrial processes and at the same time to reduce their economic impact allowing them to exploit their waste and to convert them into electricity, with high flexibility, minimal maintenance requirements and all the components customized realised.

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