Energy for Sustainable Recycling
The Perlen Papier AG improves its energy efficiency from year to year and even produces its own electricity. Nonetheless, it depends on a secure and cost-effective energy supply.
Dirk Breuer explains it with an image. «If you're going to cut down trees at all, you might as well turn them into a newspaper five times and burn the remains to generate energy, instead of feeding it straight into the furnace.», says the head of technology & energy at Perlen Papier AG in central Switzerland. In 2014, the company produced and sold 534,000 metric tons of newsprint and magazine paper. About 70 percent of this amount were derived from recycled paper. Producing paper is energy intensive. Perlen Papier consumes some 600 Gigawatt of electricity and 400 Gigawatt of gas annually—about the same amount as the nearby city of Lucerne with its 80,000 inhabitants. The company buys its electricity on the partly deregulated market at competitive prices. Eight percent of its energy needs are covered by electricity it produces at two company-owned hydraulic power stations. The company with its 350 employees is strongly affected by currency fluctuations, because 83% of its production are sold abroad. All the more important for Dirk Breuer not to have the competitiveness of his company compromised by unnecessary regulatory obstacles. «Switzerland still has a way to go in this respect.»
More about the company at www.perlen.ch
Secure, Competitive Energy Supply and Efficient Protection of the Environment
Perlen Papier AG benefits from a reliable energy supply at competitive prices. At the same time the company invests in the permanent improvement of its own energy efficiency and in this way contributes to an unspoiled Swiss environment. Under a mandatory target agreement with the federal government the company is expected to lower its CO2 emissions by at least nine percent by 2020. To achieve its target it is actively using the services of the Energy Agency of the Swiss Private Sector (EnAW).
