Friday, February 3, 2017

A Dutch Program for Increasing Electrification in their Chemical Industry

The Dutch-backed program name VoltaChem aims to increase the use of electricity in chemical industry processes.   A VoltaChem white paper provides details on the program (click here to read this whitepaper).

A driving force in using increased electrical energy has to do with the ability to generate this electricity using renewable energy sources, which in turn will led to significant reductions in using fossil fuels in generating the electricity.  The reduction of fossil fuel use is needed in order for The Netherlands to meet European Union carbon dioxide emission standards.  The Netherlands, which currently gets about 10% of its energy from renewable sources, wants to substantially increase this percentage.  A major contribution to this increase is expected to be wind energy, with more major offshore wind farms planned.  Then hopefully this increased renewable energy supply will nicely satisfy a hoped-for increase in electricity demand by the chemical industry.

VoltaChem goals, which are long-term, include increasing chemical industry demands for electrification.   This includes: the use of electricity (versus fossil fuels) in heating processes needed in chemical production; using electricity in generating basic feed stocks such as hydrogen and ammonia; and using electrochemical process in converting feed stocks into higher-value chemical products.



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