• Siemens’ involvement at key Hanson sites has brought big energy savings
  • Hanson’s CO2 reduction is in the ‘thousands’ of tonnes

Siemens‘ growing partnership with Hanson is bringing the cement and aggregates specialist benefits in both energy savings and CO2 reduction at several of its UK sites.

Hanson is utilising Siemens‘ integrated drive systems (IDS) and total engineered solutions to upgrade and improve many of its existing UK operations, with fan and clinker cooler upgrades and dewatering projects, amongst others. A large proportion of these upgrades has already taken place at some of Hanson’s oldest and most established UK sites, with immediate efficiency improvements.

As Siemens application engineer Gary Palmer confirmed, IDS, control systems (CS) and total engineered control solutions have been central to the successful upgrades, with actual results proving better than anticpated: “By using our CS IDS solutions we’ve been able to produce returns on investments in as little as 14 months in some cases and significantly improve Hanson’s sustainability at the same time.“

At its Purfleet site, Hanson has made energy savings of 36 per cent with a fan upgrade to one of its mills, also reducing CO2 emissions by 1,487 tonnes. At Ribblesdale, a kiln fan upgrade is making even greater savings, with an additional dewatering project protecting a nearby stream. At Ketton, already one of the most efficient cement operations in Europe, a Siemens clinker cooler upgrade has paid for itself within 14 months and reduced CO2 emissions by  over 770 tonnes to date.  Lower noise and vibration levels have been additional benefits at Ketton.

Martin Crow is senior sustainability manager at Hanson. He commented: “We have a challenging target to reduce carbon emissions by 10% per tonne by 2020 based on 2010 baseline data so energy efficiency is critical to our business. We continue to invest in new technology and we have recently achieved the ISO 50001 energy management standard to help drive further improvements.“

Siemens has proven a useful technology partner to Hanson in building the business case for process equipment and control improvements at its older UK sites. As a result, upgrades carried out have in many cases brought greater than anticipated benefits in terms of faster payback and reduced energy use; at the same time providing successful and long-term solutions to benefit Hanson’s engineering teams. The bottom line benefits of reduced energy, more reliable equipment and lower CO2 emissions have come through these advanced engineering solutions.

See more about the range of Siemens solutions for industry at www.siemens.co.uk