Projects
Projects
Projects financed or co-financed by National Programs
Decarbonization of the Industrial Operation at the Alhandra Production Center
Environmental concern is one of Cimpor's main strategic competitiveness factors, and the company has successively implemented more advanced technological and environmental solutions to reduce the impact of its activity.
Cimpor's decarbonization project aims to decarbonize cement production at the Alhandra Production Centre, through upgrades to line 7, with the cornerstone being the increased replacement of fossil fuels, specifically petcoke, by a myriad of alternative fuels with a higher fraction of biogenic carbon (less fossil carbon), namely biomass, fuels derived from waste and hydrogen, this being the main mechanism for decarbonizing emissions from the combustion process adopted by the cement industry.
The decarbonization proposed by this project results from a massive replacement of fossil fuels by alternative fuels with lower carbon emissions and the replacement of natural raw materials by others with a higher level of decarbonization. Some of the investments needed to replace fossil fuels with alternative fuels at the Alhandra Production Center have already been made and have enabled the clinker production process to supply around 40% of its energy needs with alternative fuels that are cleaner than petcoke and fuel oil. However, with Cimpor aiming to increase the percentage of incorporation of alternative fuels from 40% to 80%, the major technological challenge now lies in the ability of the manufacturing process to accommodate this increase without losing productivity and quality and, therefore, without losing economic viability.
Thus, the technologies and equipment to be implemented are mainly aimed at helping to maintain the production capacity of line 7 of the Alhandra Production Centre at 80% alternative fuels in clinker production, and increasing the level of incorporation of decarbonized raw materials, being jointly and integrally responsible for the decarbonization objectives.
The technical objectives of the investment to be carried out will essentially seek to ensure that the decarbonization process is economically viable, guaranteeing that line 7 will continue to produce clinker at the desired levels, while significantly reducing the carbon emissions resulting from this production.
The purpose of this investment project is to implement a series of adaptations and alterations to line 7 of the Alhandra Production Center, in order to guarantee, by the end of 2025, the decarbonization of an additional 190 000 tons of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere per year.
This investment will be another significant step towards building a more sustainable future.
With a total investment of 87 680 565.00 € and an incentive of 15 000 000.00 €, this project was financed by the EU through the Next Generation EU and the Portuguese/EU Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF)
Announcement for the Call (AAC) 02/C11-i01/2022.
Click here to read the project sheet.
Decarbonization of the Industrial Operation at the Souselas Production Center
Cimpor is committed to minimizing the impacts and managing the environmental footprint of its operations in order to contribute to the preservation of the planet's fragile balance, by implementing more advanced technological and environmental solutions to reduce the impact of its activity.
As part of the general decarbonization effort that Cimpor is preparing to carry out, the Souselas Production Centre will be a prime target for investments and interventions to reduce annual CO2 emissions.
This project aims to provide the Souselas Production Centre with the conditions to significantly reduce its CO2 emissions. This reduction will be achieved by combining the following factors:
a) increasing the replacement of fossil fuels in line 3, specifically petroleum coke (petcoke), with alternative fuels with a higher fraction of biogenic carbon (less fossil carbon), namely biomass, fuels derived from waste, used tires, and hydrogen;
b) the introduction of partially decarbonized raw materials in clinker production;
c) the industrialization of the production of calcined clays, which have the capacity to replace clinker in cement production and whose manufacture produces substantially lower volumes of emissions. The introduction of calcined clays in the cement production process represents a decisive step towards the introduction of "Low Carbon Cement" on the market, a category of products that will have a disruptive impact on the environmental performance of the cement industry.
The investment project at the Souselas Production Center is an initiative that brings together several integrated technical interventions, with the aim of reducing total annual CO2 emissions from cement production from 925 710 tons to 780 707 tons, which is equivalent to a reduction of 145 003 tons per year.
This is another investment that will be another significant step towards building a more sustainable future.
With a total investment of 40 559 866.00 €, and an incentive of 15 000 000.00 €, this project was financed by the EU through the Next Generation EU and the Portuguese/EU Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF)
Announcement for the Call (AAC) 02/C11-i01/2022.
Click here to read the project sheet.
Incentive System: “Decarbonisation of Industry”
Funding Program: Portuguese/EU Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF)
Period: April 2023 – March 2024
CIMPOR- Industria de Cimentos, S.A. will install two Self-Consumption Production Units (UPAC) at the Maia Commercial Depot is underway. The installation will generate approximately 1 300 MWh per year, avoiding the emission of 450 tonnes of CO2. The aim is to autonomously produce around 40% of our energy needs, further reducing indirect CO2 emissions.
With a total investment of 735,643.42 euros and an incentive of 192,146.30 euros, the project is funded by the EU through the Next Generation EU and the Portuguese/EU Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF).
Announcement for the Call (AAC) 03/C11-i01/2022.
Click here to read the project sheet.
R2UTechnologies: Modular Construction Systems
Funding Program: Portuguese/EU Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF)
Period: 2022-2025
Website: To be developed yet.
A new cluster will be created in Portugal for the global supply of the modular construction sector, in response to the growing needs of the market in terms of housing, university residences, hotels and health infrastructure and counts on CIMPOR to innovate in the field of materials for manufacturing pre-cast elements. Boosting the productivity and competitiveness of this sector is the main objective of the innovation agenda “R2UTechnologies / Modular Systems, one of the 23 innovation agendas, supported by the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF)/ Business Innovation Mobilizing Agendas, which count with CIMPOR's contribution.
This project gathers circa 30 companies and 20 R&D&I partners, who came together to develop new technologies for more efficient, faster and “intelligent” production, and to create differentiating products with high value-added. The project main objective is the industrialization of construction through a deep change in the productive profile of the construction sector, promoting its evolution from a labour-intensive production paradigm to another knowledge-intensive one in which modular construction and pre-built manufacturing in different types of materials and their respective combinations will play a fundamental role in increasing the productivity of this sector.
CIMPOR’s team of specialists will contribute with skills in terms of lower carbon footprint materials, new cements and concretes types, together with a sub-group of partners, Vigobloco, IST/Technical University of Lisbon and LNEC State Lab, to develop concrete-based constructive solutions for higher performance that will be launched and used during the project.
The overall project’s goal is to launch 18 new products, processes or services (PPS) with a tradable and internationalization profile by the end of it.
With a total investment of €177 million, the project is funded by the EU through the Next Generation EU and the RRF, under the Operational Programme Capitalisation and Business Innovation.
Click here to read the project sheet.
Projects financed or co-Financing by European Programs
Strategy CCUS: Carbon Capture, Use & Storage (CCUS) | Strategic planning of Regions and Territories in Europe for low-carbon energy and industry through CCUS.
Funding Program: Horizon 2020/UE
Grant No.: 837754
Period: 2019-2022 (Closed)
Website: www.strategyccus.brgm.fr
Goal: The STRATEGY CCUS project aims to elaborate strategic plans for CCUS development in Southern and Eastern Europe at short term (up to 3 years), medium term (3-10 years) and long term (more than 10 years). Specific objectives are to develop: i) Local CCUS development plans, with local business models, within promising start‐up regions; and ii) Connection plans with transport corridors between local CCUS clusters, and with the North Sea infrastructure, in order to improve performance and reduce costs, thus contributing to build a Europe-wide CCUS infrastructure.
The project consider 8 promising regions, within 7 countries (ES, FR, GR, HR, PO, PT, RO) representing 45% of the European CO2 emissions from the industry and energy sectors. These regions satisfy CCUS relevant criteria: presence of an industrial cluster, possibilities for CO2 storage and/or utilization, potential for coupling with hydrogen production and use, existing studies, and political will.
EMB3Rs: User-driven Energy-Matching & Business Prospection Tool for Industrial Excess Heat/Cold Reduction, Recovery and Redistribution
Funding Program: Horizon 2020/UE
Grant No.: 847121
Period: 2019-2023 (Closed)
Website: www.emb3rs.eu
Goal: The EMB3Rs project aims to implement a bottom-up, user-driven and open source modelling platform to simulate alternative supply-demand scenarios for the recovery and reuse of industrial excess heat and cold (HC). EMB3Rs’ final users will employ the platform to determine the costs and benefits related with excess HC utilization routes, and to define the required implementation conditions for the most promising solutions. The platform will allow industrial users and other relevant stakeholders to autonomously and intuitively explore and assess the feasibility of new technology and business scenarios.
LEILAC-2: Low Emissions Intensity Lime and Cement 2: Demonstration Scale
Funding Program: Horizon 2020/UE
Grant No.:884170
Period: 2021-2025
Website: www.leilac.com
Goal: The LEILAC2 project aims to pilot a breakthrough technology that aims to enable Europe’s cement and lime industries to capture their unavoidable process carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for minimal energy penalty (just compression).Building on the success of the previously H2020 LEILAC1 project, with the capacity to capture of around 5% of a typical cement plant’s process CO2 emissions, the LEILAC2 project seeks to scale -up to around 20% of a typical cement plant’s process CO2 emissions in a deployable and scalable module; demonstrate the use of multiple fuel sources (particularly electricity with rapid ramping to enable renewable load-balancing); and show how it can be incrementally or fully retrofitted to all cement plants. This will be achieved by building a demonstration plant alongside an operational cement plant in Europe: allowing 100ktpa of pure CO2 to be captured.
DIGIECOQUARRY: Innovative Digital Sustainable Aggregates Systems
Funding Program: Horizonte 2020/UE
Grant No.:101003750
Period: 2021-2025
Website: www.digiecoquarry.eu
Goal: The aim of DIGIECOQUARRY project is to develop systems, technologies, and processes to boost the digitalisation and automation of mining operations to make them safer, more sustainable, and competitive. Specifically, artificial intelligence (AI) approaches will be paired with cyber-physical systems and the Internet of things (IoT). The next step will be to pilot these systems in five EU quarries to improve workers’ health and safety. The overall aim is to sustainably increase the supply of minerals for the construction sector.
ROTATE: Circular Ecological Essential & Critical Raw Materials
Funding Program: Horizon/UE
Grant No.: 101058651
Period: 2022-2026
Website: rotateproject.eu
Goal: ROTATE's objective is to tap the full potential of minerals extraction and processing in a sustainable and ecological way, developing the needed technologies and tools for achieving zero emissions and pollution during essential and critical raw materials obtention and ensuring a circular approach by implementing mechanisms for waste valorisation in the context of industrial symbiosis, especially reusing waste as aggregates for the construction sector and also recovering secondary products. The solutions proposed in the project will allow to improve the cut-off grade while reducing the environmental footprint of the whole extraction process. The pilot demonstrations in mineral deposits with different paragenetic profiles will ensure the replication of the technologies to a wide variety of mining sites.