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20 MW, Étival-Clairefontaine, France
Plant specifications
| Client: | Papeteries Clairefontaine - Exacompta |
| Location: | Clairefontaine-Étival, France |
| Type of plant: | Process plant |
| Capacity: | 22 MW, 45 bar, 25 tons/t and local district heating 45/35 C |
| Fuel: | Wood chips, crushed pallets and garden & park waste |
| Technology: | Biomass gasification furnace & steam boiler |
| Status: | January 2023, under construction |
A perfect match between Dall Energy and the paper group Clairefontaine
The Clairefontaine paper group is recognised in France as a high-end paper manufacturer that is pioneering sustainable practices through its focus on forest and water conservation.
The green ambitions of Clairefontaine made for an ideal match with Dall Energy’s biomass gasification technology when the group was looking for an alternative to their aged, fossil gas-fired boiler.
Clairefontaine and Dall Energy signed a contract for the partnership in January 2023, and a biomass-fired boiler plant is now under construction. The new plant will be connected to the existing cogeneration plant to meet the high energy requirements of the paper factory.
Optimized technology enables maximum energy exploitation
Clairefontaine's choice of Dall Energy's technology was not only justified by the very clean technology with very low emissions, but also because Dall Energy's technology makes it possible to vary the load between 10% and 100%, almost as if it were a gas-fired plant, which is essential in an industrial production.
As an added benefit, surplus heat from the process is used to supply heat to the factory's offices and halls, and the flue gas, which is very clean and practically particle-free, is channeled to the nearby Omya factory, where CO2 is used in its production process. This is an ideal way to utilize all the energy in the fuel while reducing the CO2 footprint.
Clairefontaine: a historic and family-owned company
The paper manufacturer Clairefontaine was founded back in 1858 by Jean-Baptiste Bichelberger and today the company is mainly family-owned. Clairefontaine is an exclusive paper manufacturer specializing in school, artist, craft and office supplies.
The company is presently a part of the Exacompta-Clairefontaine group that consists of about 50 subsidiaries and 3200 employees spread across Europe and Africa, including 580 employees at the papermill in Étival-Clairefontaine in France (Papeteries de Clairefontaine).
Since its inception in the 19th century, the company has pursued a sustainable strategy. For instance, in its infancy Clairefontaine used surplus rags from the local textile production for their paper production. This sustainable approach ensured the growth of the company, and within a few years, Clairefontaine had become one of the most successful companies in the Vosges region.