Hydro announced the grand opening of the new pilot plant
located at its existing aluminium plant in Karmøy, Norway. The new plant is the
world’s most climate-friendly aluminium production technology, according to the
company press release.
The 60 new electrolysis cells will produce 75,000 tonnes of primary
aluminium a year. First metal from the technology pilot is expected towards the
end of this year.
Hydro President and CEO Svein Richard Brandtzæg said: “This
is a technological breakthrough. No one has managed to produce aluminium with
such low energy consumption and high productivity as Hydro will at full-scale
production.”
“Hydro is very proud that we have managed to develop a
technology that reduces energy consumption, on average, by about 15 percent per
kilo of aluminium produced, which will result in the lowest carbon emissions in
aluminium production anywhere in the world.”
Prime Minister Erna Solberg inaugurated the pilot plant on
August 24, 2017. The technology pilot involves an investment of NOK 4.3
billion, supported with NOK 1.6 billion from ENOVA, a Norwegian public
enterprise.
“If the world’s production
of aluminium was made with the technology Hydro has now developed, it would
save energy equivalent to Norway’s annual production of hydropower,” he
concluded.
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