CropEnergies

The Customer

Andreas Lander © www.AndreasLander.de

Sustainable products made from renewable biomass are the business of CropEnergies. Founded in Mannheim in 2006, the member of the Südzucker Group is the leading European producer of sustainably produced, renewable ethanol. A new ethyl acetate plant is being built at the Zeitz Chemical and Industrial Park. The new production plant will be the first of its kind in Europe. It will produce 60,000 tons of renewable ethyl acetate per year from sustainable ethanol using renewable energy sources.

The Challenge

CropEnergies‘ aim is to achieve greater sustainability through innovations from biomass. To supply energy to the new ethyl acetate plant, a sustainable energy concept had to be developed and implemented.

The Solution

With extensive experience and expertise in the field of sustainable energy supply, waste-to-value and waste recycling, GETEC has designed a plant for CropEnergies for climate-neutral energy supply with steam, electricity, compressed air and nitrogen. In addition to biomass, the energy solution will also thermally utilize liquid and gaseous production residues. As part of the project development, GETEC applied for and received funding from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection as an investment cost subsidy.

The project will be implemented on a contracting basis and will form a further building block in CropEnergies‘ sustainability ambitions. With the GETEC solution, CropEnergies avoids CO₂ emissions of over 35,000 tons per year compared to a standard gas boiler.