Furniture manufacturer Vepa recently installed an electrolyser for producing green hydrogen at its production location in Emmen. The company claims to be the first manufacturer in Drenthe to make such an investment.
The oven of the powder coating installation for painting furniture parts is heated with hydrogen. According to Vepa, this will reduce fossil natural gas consumption by 30 percent.
“The energy we need for the production of hydrogen is generated by the more than 3,000 solar panels on the roof of our Circular Center,” says Bert Top, director of Vepa. “If they do not supply enough in extremely bad weather, the energy requirement will be supplemented with Dutch wind energy.”
Vepa, which also has a location in Hoogeveen, often finds a solution to exchange environmental pollutants or non-sustainable materials for ‘green substances’. For example, in 2020 the company introduced a chair made entirely of biomaterial.
“We are working towards circular production. With this innovation we are one step closer,” says Top. “After all, we use renewable raw materials instead of fossil natural gas. Because we produce everything in our own factories, the CO2 footprint per product is already low.”