# Sustainability

Two commitments are fixed design requirements for this plant, not aspirations
to be traded away during engineering: run on as much renewable energy as
possible, and discharge no contaminated water. Both are decisions we can
actually make, because the two biggest utility systems (steam and cooling)
are explicitly excluded from the Newbilt scope and will be sourced and
installed locally in Thailand. That gives us a free hand to spec them green
from day one.

## Renewable energy: large solar installation

The pressing machinery itself is a modest electrical load: 32 kVA connected,
~21 kW average for a full Duplex line. The real energy demand sits in the
utilities around it, above all the steam generator (400 kg/h saturated steam
at 10 bar / 180 °C) and the 250 kW cooling system.

- A large rooftop/ground PV installation is planned. Northern Thailand's solar
  irradiance is favorable, and daytime-heavy production shifts align well with
  PV output.
- The chosen hardware direction: multiple large **Deye** three-phase hybrid
  inverters (30 to 80 kW class, parallelable up to 10 units) paired with a
  **Gobel Power** high-voltage LiFePO4 battery stack at **271 kWh** (15
  stacked 18 kWh packs, LFP 314 Ah cells, rated 8000+ cycles). Deye is an
  officially supported protocol on the Gobel BMS, and Deye has established
  Thai distribution. Two engineering checks are open: matching the battery
  rack's DC voltage window to the specific Deye model (a full 15-pack rack
  can exceed the 800 V window of the smaller Deye series), and obtaining
  Gobel's safety certifications (not published) for a Thai commercial
  install. At 271 kWh the stack is a peak-shaving and ride-through buffer,
  not full off-grid autonomy, against loads like the 250 kW cooling system.
- The machine load and cooling system are straightforward PV targets.
- Steam is the open engineering question. Options under evaluation include an
  electric boiler (maximizes the solar share), a biomass boiler (locally
  abundant fuel), and solar-thermal pre-heating of boiler feedwater. No
  technology choice has been made yet; it will be driven by honest numbers on
  load profiles, storage, and grid backup, not by what sounds greenest.
- System sizing (kWp, storage, grid-connection model) is open until the site
  is chosen.

## Zero contaminated water

The reference process schematic shows a conventional open "dirty water"
cooling loop. We will not build it that way.

- Cooling (up to 250 kW, 220 l/min peak, roughly 98% of it mold cooling) will
  run as a closed loop with a cooling tower/chiller, so process water is
  recirculated rather than discharged.
- Steam condensate will be recovered and returned to the treated feedwater
  cycle instead of being dumped.
- The planned in-house galvanics line (silvering and stamper electroforming)
  involves plating chemistry: silver solutions and nickel baths. This is the
  hardest part of the zero-discharge commitment. Rinse water will need
  closed-loop treatment and metal recovery, designed in from the start rather
  than retrofitted.
- Solvent handling (flagged in the site requirements) will be contained and
  disposed of as controlled waste, never via wastewater.
- Target: no process-water discharge to the local environment. Detailed water
  balance and treatment design are pending site selection.

## Materials

The plant design already includes a PVC recycling loop: an in-house grinder
returns trimmings and rejects to the extruder, with the standard feed mix at
80% virgin / 20% recycled compound. Record scrap becomes feedstock, not
landfill.

For the virgin compound itself, the preference is **local (Thai/regional)
PVC sourcing if the quality meets vinyl-record specifications**. The current
supplier list (2021) is almost entirely European, with one US option;
qualifying a local compound would cut shipping distance, cost, and the
carbon footprint of the feedstock. European suppliers remain the fallback
where quality demands it.