Ardagh Glass Packaging-Europe (AGP-Europe), an operating business of Ardagh Group, has been honoured with the Think Big! award at the 2024 DENA Energy Efficiency Awards, recognising its ground-breaking NextGen Furnace.
DENA – the German Energy Agency (Deutsche Energie Agentur) honours projects that are committed to climate protection and sustainability in its annual Energy Efficiency Awards.
At the 2024 awards event, Ardagh Glass Packaging’s NextGen Furnace won the Think Big! award for complex energy transition projects. The NextGen Furnace hybrid technology replaces natural gas with renewable electricity to significantly reduce the carbon impact of glass packaging.
Ardagh’s R&D Project Manager, Joris Goossens, highlighted the significance of the NextGen Furnace for sustainability and energy efficiency: “The furnace’s ability to melt glass at commercial scale using high levels of renewable electricity, while incorporating up to 70 percent recycled glass content, is a game-changer in energy efficiency. To date, these innovations have enabled us to reduce carbon emissions by 64 percent for every glass bottle produced.
“We are proud to win the DENA Think Big! award, which reflects Ardagh’s leadership in driving energy efficiency and reducing carbon emissions within the glass manufacturing industry.”
Ardagh continues to ramp up the electrical heating in the NextGen Furnace towards its target of 80 percent, to further minimise carbon emissions from glass packaging production by up to 69 percent percent per glass bottle.