The Technology All-Rounder

"Josef Hofer pays close attention to the weather report these days: “It simply cannot be windy on Saturday.” That’s because Mr. Hofer is planning to install a silo roof weighing a hefty 63 metric tons. A 45-meter tall mobile crane will put the roof, with a diameter of 23 meters, on the silo, and this can only be done without a breath of wind for safety reasons.
Mr. Hofer is a mechanical engineering technician. He works in the Central Plant Engineering division of Koehler Innovation & Technology at the company’s main site in Oberkirch. Under the leadership of this division, the Koehler Group is currently converting the coal power plant, which has been supplying the adjacent paper factory with electricity and steam since 1986, into a more eco-friendly biomass combined heat and power plant. This transition is supporting the Koehler Group’s sustainability strategy, which, by 2030, aims to generate more green energy than is required for the Group’s paper production. Mr. Hofer is heading up the conversion and keeping track of all the details together with process engineer and Corporate Director Michael Trautmann. On this sunny day in March, the two managers and Hartmut Felsch, Mill Director of Koehler Paper at Oberkirch, are visiting the construction site to see how the work is progressing. It is scheduled to be completed in fall 2024. “We are well within the scheduled timeframe,” Mr. Hofer is pleased to report."

The conversion of the coal power plant will cost the Koehler Group around 70 million euros. For Hartmut Felsch, it’s a wise investment in the future: “The construction of a new power plant would cost twice as much as the conversion.” In the future, the energy required for paper production will be obtained from burning wood chips, landscaping material, and mill residue. The combustion process generates heat, which will be used for producing steam. That will then be sent to a turbine, which will drive a power generator in the plant. “We will extract some of the steam and inject it into the paper factory, where it will be used to dry paper webs,” explains Michael Trautmann. This principle is known as cogeneration.For the Koehler Group, obtaining biomass from the region is a priority in order to keep transport routes as short as possible. Unlike coal, biomass is a renewable raw material. By switching to ;renewable energy sources, the Koehler Group expects to significantly reduce CO2 emissions by more than 150,000 metric tons per year at the Oberkirch site. This will not only contribute to the company becoming carbon neutral – by 2030, it wants to generate more green energy than it needs for paper production – but will also help to reduce Germany’s carbon footprint. Importantly, the new biomass combined heat and power plant will also make the Koehler Group more resilient to crises, because it will not be dependent on energy supplies from abroad, as is often the case with gas, for example.

The 60 plus employees in the Central Plant Engineering division are responsible for the planning, scheduling, and execution of technical projects. Their work has changed considerably over the decades, says Corporate Director Michael Trautmann. “Originally, the division was a technical office with a handful of colleagues who produced the technical drawings and designs themselves.” With more than 100 large and small projects a year, there are plenty of other tasks too. That’s why Central Plant Engineering is now the hub where information from all project stakeholders comes together. “Our core is the planning department, which has around 40 employees,” explains Mr. Trautmann. This is divided into Mechanical Planning, Electrical Engineering Planning, and Construction Planning. “The other departments deal with procuring services and technical systems, as well as technical products and project components. We also have an Environmental Protection and Facility Licensing team, which handles all of the relevant official and legal applications and reports for executing projects.” In other words, Central Plant Engineering has experts in all relevant fields and can offer its internal customers a complete package.
Michael Trautmann expects projects like this to become a more frequent occurrence in the future because of the Koehler Group’s sustainability strategy: “We are proud to be facilitating and supporting such a positive development.”"