Hydro Annual Report 2011b

52
vIABIlItY perForMAnCe
Energy and climate change
Cooperating to save energy
Enova is a Norwegian governmental organization founded to
promote environmentally friendly restructuring of energy generation
and consumption. Enova is co-funding Hydro projects to develop
more energy-efficient production processes. These projects are
an important part of Hydro’s efforts to reduce specific energy
consumption from new and existing plants. If successful, the
technology could be used outside Norway and, in some cases,
outside Hydro. One example is a project to increase heat recovery
in the metallurgical industry. Enova’s support makes it possible to
carry out projects that have a higher business risk than we usually
allow for. In 2011, Enova contributed NOK 3.4 million to Hydro, see
also page 69.
achieved an energy consumption of 12.5 kWh per kg aluminium.
We have initiated a program to widely pilot innovative
technology solutions, which when implemented, will
have the potential to reduce the energy consumption for all
our primary metal plants by 200-400 GWh on an annual
basis. These pilots are in the planning process and will be
started in 2012.
We work closely with customers to develop products that save
energy and reduce emissions. Aluminium façades can lead to
lower operating costs and enable buildings to produce as much
energy as they consume during operation. Hydro has built
three buildings that aim to be energy neutral during operation.
Hydro’s test center in Bellenberg, Germany, produced 9,686
KWh more energy than it used in 2011. This equals a self sufficiency
of 126 percent. See also page 68.
Lighter cars result in fuel savings and lower emissions on the
road, and lighter aluminium products and packaging reduce
transport costs and emissions. Excellent barrier properties
reduce the cooling needs of food products while improving
durability, thus reducing food spoilage. In 2011, Hydro
became one of 12 sponsors of SAvE fOOD, an initiative from
the United Nations’ food and Agriculture Organization. Our
specific contribution is packaging, in which aluminium helps
to conserve food more effectively so it stays fresh longer with
less cooling and is better protected for transport and storage.
This helps reducing emissions in the food supply chain and in
the consumption of beverages.
We are currently upgrading several of our hydropower plants
in Norway to secure future stable production. The Rjukan
watershed, with a total annual normal production of 3 TWh
from five plants in the Måna river, is the largest upgrade with
an estimated cost above NOK 800 million. The project is
expected to be completed in 2015. We are also working on
increasing the production further within current assets. When
finalized in 2012, the refurbishment of the Holsbru and Herva
plants and construction of the vasstøl plant, will increase the
potential electricity output by 150 GWh per year.
Industry major user of energy
“Climate and energy challenges must be solved largely through
technology development. Innovative solutions must be able
to be implemented on a large scale, by any company, through
both the introduction of new processes and modifications to
existing facilities. Hydro currently has a strong commitment to the
development of the core process: what happens in the electrolytic
cells. We see this as commendable, since it is here the bulk of the
energy is consumed and most greenhouse gases are produced.”
Nils Kristian Nakstad,
Chief Executive Officer, Enova
Read full interview at www.hydro.com/reporting2011
We support the development of international frameworks on
climate change and greenhouse gas emissions and participate
actively in organizations such as the World Business Council
for Sustainable Development and the International Emissions
Trading Association, to provide business solutions to climate
change. In addition, we work through aluminium associations
to establish a level playing field globally for aluminium
production.
Remelting and recycling
Aluminium can be recycled over and over again without degradation
in quality. Aluminium recycling requires 95 percent
less energy than primary aluminium production. This makes
aluminium a material for the future. Hydro is a large remelter
and recycler of aluminium, with nearly 30 facilities worldwide.
We remelt process scrap from our own production and from
other companies. Our expertise in remelting is a good basis for
further expansion.
Our ambition is to grow faster than the market in recycling and
to take a strong position in this part of the value chain. By 2020,
we aim to recover 1 million metric tons (mt) of contaminated
and post-consumer scrap annually. We have improved utilization
of our existing capacity to almost 100 percent during the
last two years, and are now recycling more than 270,000 mt
annually. Due to curtailments in remelting and recycling capacity,
growth was only about 3 percent compared to 2010. In
total, Hydro is remelting and recycling above 2 million mt of
aluminium. Our goal for 2012 is to stabilize at above 90 percent
capacity utilization and to develop specific post-consumed scrap
projects for investment in additional capacity. This will also
improve the carbon footprint of Hydro.
In the next phase, we intend to invest in additional recycling
assets to capture scrap volumes generated in our plants and
from plants operated by our partners. One of our goals is to
develop recycling plants that serve internal and external customers
with metal products produced from contaminated
industrial and end-of-life scrap. The previously announced
investment in a recycling plant at Karmøy, Norway was