The first experiences Coldenhove had with production heat recovery were for internal purposes. Producing paper generates excess heat of 70 degrees Celsius, which has been used during the winter to heat the factory buildings. One day, in the early 1980s, the community of Eerbeek/Coldenhove sat down to plan the renovation of the public swimming pool. Coldenhove was able to offer residual heat for the pool water.

Design

Our first idea was to heat only the children’s pool and the play pool, but that wasn’t quite enough. With technical aid we were able to design a high performance system with thermal exchangers to heat all the pools up to 24 degrees Celsius – including the large recreational and competition pools. Coldenhove is located in the beautiful forests of Gelderland, on the edge of the Veluwe, and the public pool is well over 600 meters away. The temperature drop in the necessary heat pipeline could be reduced to only one degree. But the use of the gas-fired boiler of the swimming pool installation could be reduced to compensate the gaps in the warm water supply; for example, during weekends and the holidays of Coldenhove.

Today

Facing today’s challenges of sustainable energy management, heat recovery is a must for us as a paper industry. Inspired by our experiences and our achievements in the ‘80s, we have made heat recovery the basis for keeping our company offices nice and warm throughout the colder months. In addition we have initiated projects of heat recovery in the production lines.

Techniques for heat recovery are developing and improving all the time. We simply need to ensure the warm water supply. Now that we’ve introduced a continuous production process with five shifts and a constant stream of excess heat, our heating goals will be more feasible!