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    1. Energy Efficiency

    Saint-Gobain Installs Heat Recovery System to Power Dryers at Drywall Manufacturing Plant in Vancouver

    Feb. 26, 2024
    The waste heat emitted from the dryer will be captured and recycled, maintaining the dryer’s temperature while consuming less energy and reducing the facility’s CO2 emissions
    Saint-Gobain
    65dcba6391475c001e96c31c Saintgobain

    Saint-Gobain – through its building products subsidiary CertainTeed Canada – has installed a heat exchanger system on its industrial drywall board dryer at its gypsum facility outside Vancouver, British Columbia, to reduce the plant’s Scope 1 CO2 emissions by nearly 15%.

    The company’s gypsum wallboard is produced by pouring and drying a gypsum slurry between two sheets of paper. During this process, the wallboard passes through a large, heated dryer to solidify the wallboard and remove moisture from the product.

    With the new heat exchanger system, this waste heat emitted from the dryer will now be captured and recycled, allowing the plant to maintain the dryer’s temperature while consuming less energy and reducing the facility’s CO2 emissions.

    This upgrade aligns with Saint-Gobain’s “Grow and Impact” strategy, which seeks to reduce the company’s energy consumption and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. The project represents a nearly $7 million CAD investment, with $2.9 million CAD coming from grants, including $1.4 million CAD from the CleanBC Industry Fund program and $1.5 million CAD from FortisBC Energy’s Custom Efficiency program.

    This project at CertainTeed’s plant in Vancouver – the only gypsum wallboard manufacturing facility in British Columbia – represents a significant advancement in the company’s goals to reduce its environmental impact.

    In 2023, the facility surpassed 1 million tons of recycled gypsum returned to production – the equivalent of enough wallboard for 250,000 homes. The company is also working towards electrifying its gypsum plant outside of Montreal, which, according to CertainTeed, will be the first net-zero carbon wallboard plant in North America for Scope 1 and 2 emissions.

    About the Author

    EnergyTech Staff

    Rod Walton is senior editor for EnergyTech.com. He has spent 14 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist.

    Walton formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.

    He can be reached at [email protected]. 

    EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids.

    Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.