DÜRR BUILDS THE FIRST EU TAXONOMY-COMPLIANT PAINT SHOP

Paint shops must become "greener" to help vehicle manufacturers feel certain about meeting their ambitious climate targets, writes Team ACI.

Assessing a technology's sustainability is a complex task. In a comprehensive life cycle analysis, the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics (IBP) studied the carbon footprint of two different paint shop concepts. The result: Dürr's paint shop with the EcoQPower system, which networks all energy flows to supply all process steps, reduces carbon emissions by 19.2 per cent over its entire life cycle compared to paint shops without this system. This is mainly due to an energy consumption reduction of about 21 per cent in the utilisation phase, making it the first paint shop to comply with EU Taxonomy requirements.

Paint shops consume the most energy throughout the entire vehicle manufacturing process since applying paint and drying car bodies are very energy-intensive. Consequently, modern paint shops' carbon footprints are still significant despite technical progress. "The EU wants to be climate neutral by 2050. We had this target in mind when we adopted a new strategy on the path to a carbon-neutral paint shop from an energy perspective.

Instead of continuously increasing the energy efficiency of individual elements such as paint booths and ovens, as we did before, we developed the EcoQPower system, which considers all paint shop energy sources and network components, as well as energy flows," explained Jens Oliver Reiner, Senior Vice President Sales in the Paint and Final Assembly division at Dürr. The new concept analyses energy sources and energy sinks in operation, considering various operating states and historic climate data. Based on this analysis, the EcoQPower energy network systematically recovers energy in one place, which can then be reused elsewhere.

➤ Significant carbon footprint reduction

Sustainability is often promised, but these promises frequently turn out to be nothing more than green washing.