A new 20-year agreement between Novozymes, Novo Nordisk, Kalundborg Forsyning and DONG Energy, enables Denmark's largest coal-fired power station unit, the Asnæs Power Station, to phase out coal and replace it with wood chips. Novozymes sources steam from the power station.

'This agreement completes a circle of investments into energy efficiency and sustainability as our entire supply of electricity, heat and steam in Kalundborg will now come from other sources than coal and oil', says Jesper Haugaard, Vice President at Novozymes.

Investing to reduce environmental impact and improve competitiveness

Novozymes' production in Kalundborg uses three types of energy: Electricity, heat and steam. Over the years, significant investments have been made to increase energy efficiency and reduce environmental impact, and steam has been the only remaining energy source not based on renewables.

Since 2011, Novozymes in Denmark has relied on wind power for electricity. In 2013, Novozymes and Novo Nordisk installed a biogas reactor to convert wastewater from their factories to produce electricity and heat. And in May 2017, DONG Energy and Bigadan announced plans to convert biomass residues from Novozymes' and Novo Nordisk's factories to biogas, which will be fed directly into the Danish natural gas grid.

'Novozymes' products help tackle the world's major problems, such as climate change. This makes it only natural to take responsibility for our own impact on the environment', says Jesper Haugaard. 'This new agreement gives us a stable supply of steam at competitive terms. In this way, it supports an efficient production in Kalundborg with good jobs.'

The Asnæs Power Station is owned and operated by DONG Energy, and Thomas Dalsgaard, Executive Vice President in DONG Energy, says: 'I'm very pleased that we now have an agreement regarding Asnæs Power Station. The future belongs to sustainable energy sources such as wind, solar and biomass. We'll therefore be phasing out all use of coal at our power stations by 2023, and the decision, which was made together with our customers, is an important step on the way.'

Asnæs power plant: In numbers

• New agreement with steam generated from wood chips instead of coal enables Novozymes to reduce its CO emissions by 35,897 tons per year in Kalundborg. This corresponds to the annual emissions from 15,000 cars.

• The conversion from coal to wood chips at Asnæs Power Station will result in an annual reduction in CO emissions of around 800,000* tons. This corresponds to the annual CO emissions from more than 400,000* cars.

• The conversion of Asnæs Power Station will begin in the summer 2017, and the power station is expected to be ready for wood chip-fired production by the end of 2019.

• In 2016, Novozymes' customers avoided an estimated 69 million tons of COemissions by applying Novozymes' products. The savings achieved are equivalent to taking approximately 30 million cars off the road.

*Estimates by DONG Energy

Novozymes A/S published this content on 27 June 2017 and is solely responsible for the information contained herein.
Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 28 June 2017 13:09:09 UTC.

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