Energy conversion strategies in the European paper industry – A case study in three countries

The pulp and paper industry both uses and produces large amounts of energy and rising fuel prices bring along significant challenges to the sector. Several strategies can be applied in order to remain competitive e.g. an increase in energy efficiency, a switch in fuel and/or a novel energy conversion technology. In this study, we investigate if improved energy conversion strategies can reduce energy costs, primary energy use and CO₂ emissions of paper mills within different European countries (The Netherlands, Poland and Sweden). Our results show that differences in history and availability of resources has led to different conversion strategies in the three countries. We found that a natural gas combined cycle, which is largely implemented in The Netherlands due to long term domestic availability of natural gas, has the lowest primary energy demand. Due to a long history of low electricity prices, CHP has not been common in Sweden. Many Swedish mills use biomass as an energy source and due to low CO₂ emissions of the national grid the CO₂ emission profile of the Swedish paper industry is very low. Our results imply that future conversion routes for the Swedish paper and board industry are again wood based; in case of increasing electricity prices these would be biomass gasification based CHP solutions. With a reduction of 800kg CO₂/ton paper on average, a switch from coal to biomass would reduce CO₂ emissions in the Polish pulp and paper industry with approximately 0.6Mton/year. A carbon price of 20–25€/ton would, according to our results, be enough to provoke this switch. Due to the high share of natural gas, the CO₂ emission reduction potential of the Dutch paper industry (1.5Mton/year) is even larger than in Poland. Due to high biomass prices and relative low CO₂ emission profile of natural gas, a carbon prices of more than 60€/ton CO₂ would be needed to provoke a switch in The Netherlands. Provided with few alternatives, the most effective strategy in The Netherlands would be an increase in energy efficiency.