Partners AGC and E.ON signed the first green Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) in France to improve energy efficiency and decarbonisation.

The joint project will tackle waste heat recovery and production of green power at AGC‘s float glass plant in Seingbouse, France.

The project will be developed, implemented, financed and operated by E.ON and supported by the French Government as part of the ‘France Relance’ plan set up by ADEME (French Environment and Energy Management Agency).

Both parties have agreed to structure the project as PPA where E.ON will produce and sell electricity to AGC on a long-term basis at fixed price. This will allow AGC’s site to become largely independent of volatile energy markets.

At AGC's Seingbouse site, heat will be recovered to generate CO2-neutral electricity by implementing an innovative Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) plant with a capacity of 1.3 megawatts (MW).

To further decarbonise, E.ON is also installing a photovoltaic power plant with a capacity of 2.7 MW on the factory’s premises. It will generate renewable electricity on a total of 27 000 m2.

By combining the photovoltaic panels with the ORC power plant, E.ON will annually provide AGC with around 10 gigawatt hours (GWh) of decarbonised electricity from 2023 onwards.

This electricity is fully produced and consumed on AGC’s site and covers a large part of the electricity needs. On this basis, around 595 tons of CO2 are annually avoided.

Marc Bartheld, Plant Manager AGC Seingbouse, said: "Our plant is one of AGC’s larger production lines for the building sector with a yearly production of 240,000 tons of float glass. Our goal is to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 30% and our energy consumption by 20% by 2030.

“To achieve this, we are constantly working to improve the environmental performance of our production sites. The project in Seingbouse here in France is a perfect example of how E.ON can help us to not only achieve our sustainability goals, but also to secure the site's long-term competitiveness."

E.ON and AGC Glass Europe launched their partnership back in 2019 and have already implemented several energy efficiency projects in throughout Europe. In addition, the construction of further photovoltaic plants with up to 20 megawatts capacity is planned in Hungary and the Czech Republic.