Verallia France has renovated its number three furnace at its Saint-Romain-le-Puy (Loire) site.
The renovation has enabled the maintenance of glass production and will reduce energy consumption at the site.
Fabien Marion, Industrial Director of Verallia France said: “On this partial repair, we prepared the furnace to change the energy mix towards more electricity and less fossil fuels, allowing us to reduce our environmental footprint.”
The furnace is one of 13 at the Saint-Romain-le-Puy site. The plant is also one of the only Verallia France sites to offer several shades of glass.
Fabrice Faure, Director of the Verallia plant in Saint-Romain-le-Puy, said: “Oven number three was built in 2015 and was shut down on August 23 for partial reconstruction. 467 people from 82 different companies took turns [renovating the furnace] over 49 days.”
Isabelle Bardon, employee of the site for 25 years, and client Rodolphe de Pins, President of Cru Lirac and owner of Château de Montfnone, had the honour of restarting the oven, as the godmother and godfather, in a traditional event known as the match ceremony.
The ceremony requires the flame to be transferred from one oven to another. It was this gesture that the godmother and the godfather followed: the fire of oven number two in operation was transferred to oven number three for its restart.
The renovation is one of the many decarbonisation initiatives undertaken by the Verallia Group to achieve its target of a 46% reduction in CO2 emissions (Scopes 1 and 2) by 2030.
