Press release

Modernization saves 80 % of energy

Colas S.A. Boulogne-Billancourt, a globally acting construction corporation, operates at the Gratkorn location/Styria, Austria a plant to make bitumen emulsions from polymer and oxidation bitumen.

In March 2007 Pörner Linz was awarded by Colas a contract to perform general engineering services including authority engineering for modernizing the raw material and finished product storage. In an efficiency analysis the project team could spot potential savings both for energy consumption and the production process itself. For this reason the scope of services was considerably extended.

By optimizing loading and unloading times, heating cycles and by using a heat recovery unit that was implemented in this sector for the first time, operating costs could significantly be reduced, power demand per production hour even by 80 %. The heart of the heat recovery unit is a bitumen/thermal oil/water cooling cycle that treats all hot process water self-sufficiently from the energetic point of view.

Thanks to a high degree of commitment and experience the Pörner engineers from Linz could cope with the challenges such as thermal design of the heat exchanger including special measures to be taken as well as transition of the batch operation into a continuous production process.

The project was implemented during running operation without any incidents. In late June trial operation started, thus completing the first stage of the modernization concept at the Gratkorn location.