Dusseldorf If natural gas runs out during the energy crisis in winter, it would be a disaster for bathroom ceramics manufacturer Duravit. “With a natural gas share of over 80 percent of the total energy consumption, there is a massive dependency,” says Thomas Stammel, CTO at Duravit AG, the Handelsblatt. The medium-sized company cannot convert its systems to oil, like many other companies. In the short term, according to Stammel, there will be no alternative to natural gas, which is used in the combustion process.
The dependency of a large part of German industry on natural gas is evident in the Duravit family company. Around 60 percent of total consumption is accounted for by large industrial customers. Because the gas price was around 200 euros per megawatt hour, 400 percent above the previous year’s value, companies are trying to save where they can – or switch to alternatives.
This is showing the first signs of success: according to figures from the Federal Network Agency, large industrial customers recently used 30 percent less energy than the average for the years 2018 to 2021. But for the ceramics industry, such savings are illusory.
With the current state of technology, the production of white ceramics, such as those used for washbasins and toilet bowls, is only possible by burning expensive natural gas. And that’s not just due to the high temperatures of up to 1000 degrees Celsius.
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According to the Federal Association of the Ceramic Industry, white porcelain is only produced if carbon is involved in the combustion. For this reason, the use of electric furnaces is generally not possible.
Continental, Symrise and Henkel want to focus more on oil
There is a possible solution to the problem: “We checked whether the kilns could be operated with hydrogen in different proportions,” confirms Duravit board member Stammel. According to Stammel, this is basically the case. “This opens up interesting prospects for us in the future,” he hopes.
That doesn’t help in the short term. For hydrogen, there is currently neither the necessary infrastructure nor the supply, explains Stammel. “This applies in particular to green hydrogen – and only that would help at the moment because, for example, blue and gray hydrogen are based on natural gas.”
>> Read here: Green hydrogen is supposed to save the economy – but how do you get it? Germany?
In order to reduce gas consumption, the Duravit tunnel kilns operated in Germany are to be equipped with heat recovery from the combustion air, so-called recuperation, next year. In addition, the company announces that it is working with the admixture of oxygen. The operating heating systems in the German plants are meanwhile being converted to oil.
But even that only helps in perspective. The result should initially be a dramatic increase in energy costs – as is currently the bitter everyday reality for almost all German industrial companies.
As a survey by the Handelsblatt among the 40 Dax companies and large family businesses has shown, many are making great efforts to save gas. The chip manufacturer Infineon, for example, which uses natural gas as an energy source for semiconductor production and for air conditioning and exhaust air purification, wants to replace gas with other energy sources as far as possible. The company is confident of reducing its gas consumption in Germany and Austria by two thirds by the last quarter of the calendar year, as the Dax group announced.
Other companies such as Continental, Symrise or Henkel also want to temporarily rely more on oil. The Schwarz Group, which owns the retail chains Lidl and Kaufland, has made investments in the tens of millions for its bakery in its works in Übach-Palenberg in order to convert the burners so that they can also be operated with oil. “This crisis is forcing us to make investments to convert our production facilities so that we can continue to produce even in an emergency,” explains Jörg Aldenkott, CEO of Schwarz production. “We started this early on to prevent an impending delivery failure.”
Duravit wants to be climate neutral by 2045
Duravit has a much harder time there. With a connected load of 22,000 kilowatts per hour, Duravit’s German ceramics plants in Hornberg and Meissen need around 70 gigawatts of energy from gas every year. That’s why the company, which generated sales of 604 million euros last year with its eleven production sites worldwide, already pays a high seven-digit amount for gas in Germany alone.
Now there is a risk of it multiplying. “We are currently expecting gas prices in Germany to increase by a factor of 6.5 by 2023 at the latest, which would mean additional costs of around 16.5 million euros a year for the two ceramic plants in Hornberg and Meißen,” calculates CTO Stammel. And in addition to the gas costs, there would in all probability be additional costs from electricity consumption in the seven-figure range.
According to the current state of technology, the production of white ceramics, such as washbasins and toilet bowls, is only possible with the combustion of natural gas.
(Photo: Duravit)
If, in the worst case, there is a shortage of natural gas, it could help that the company is internationally positioned and has production facilities in all important sales countries. The plant in Bischwiller, France, can take over up to 25 percent of the burn-back capacities from Hornberg and Meißen if production there has to be reduced for supply reasons, explains Stammel. Since 85 percent of Duravit ceramic production comes from foreign plants, the company does not fear any delivery problems, at least for the time being.
In the long term, however, there is probably no alternative to a massive reduction in gas consumption for Duravit. Because even before the outbreak of the Ukraine war, company boss Stephan Tahy had set the company the goal of being climate-neutral by 2045 at the latest.
>> Read here: Under decarbonization pressure – the steel industry must quickly become carbon neutral
To do this, he got himself Porsche Consulting as a partner, which initially carried out a status survey. And this is not about compensation, but about an actual conversion of the production processes, explains Tahy. “We have the ambition to set up the first ceramic production in the world that is actually climate-neutral,” he said in a recent interview with the Handelsblatt.
The dramatic increase in gas prices makes this even more urgent in order to secure Germany as a location for energy-intensive industries. However, Tahy also expects political support. “Precisely because we have given our employees the guarantee that we will remain in Germany, it is particularly important for us that the government does everything to ensure that this location remains competitive,” he emphasized.
More: Duravit boss Stephan Tahy in an interview: “It’s time to take a stand”