The Road Runs Through Carbon Capture Powered by Integrated Electrification, Automation and Digital Systems
By Devan Pillay
Cement is one of the hardest industries in the world to decarbonize, accounting for nearly 8% of global CO₂ emissions. Around 60% of these emissions come from the calcination of limestone itself, rather than from burning fuel. Efficiency, alternative fuels and electrification can cut the energy-related share, but no amount of efficiency removes the CO₂ released when clinker is made.
That doesn’t put green cement out of reach, it just means getting there in stages. Existing plants can cut emissions by around 15% through efficiency and digital optimization and by around 30% with targeted investment.
New-build assets can reach up to 50% by combining electrification, alternative fuels and carbon capture from the outset. The final stretch depends on carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), which the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) expects to deliver up to 36% of the emissions reductions the sector needs by mid-century.
The process itself is relatively straightforward where flue gas from the kiln is cooled and fed through an absorber, where a solvent captures around 90% of the CO₂. The CO₂ is then separated from the solvent to produce a stream that is more than 99.9% pure.
Finally, it is compressed to around 110 bar, roughly 110 times atmospheric pressure, so it can be transported efficiently for use in industrial applications or injected deep underground for permanent storage.
The hard part is making that process run reliably, day after day, alongside a kiln that cannot afford to stop. A capture plant isn’t a bolt-on. It adds some of the largest electrical loads on site, and its performance is tightly coupled to what the kiln is doing at any moment. In many plants, the electrical network, process control and energy management still sit in separate systems, run by separate teams with separate data, but carbon capture exposes those gaps.
At Schneider Electric, we close them by engineering power, automation and digital as one integrated system, from design through to operation. Medium-voltage power and variable speed drives handle the largest loads.
Control runs on EcoStruxure Process Expert, integrated with the AVEVA System Platform, so operators see, in one place, how energy, process and emissions affect each other.
Because the architecture is open and software-defined, producers can add capture units, new fuels and electrified equipment over time without replacing their control systems. Together with AVEVA, we also validate the design in a digital twin before construction begins, which de-risks commissioning.
Our work in the sector shows why this matters. JK Cement, located in India, is a case in point where Schneider Electric has worked with the company since 2017-2018, and at its Panna plant, delivered as a turnkey project, power and process control now run on a single EcoStruxure Process Expert platform across two cement lines and their waste heat recovery systems.
AI-based optimization on the raw and cement mills is delivering productivity, energy and quality gains of up to 3%, while the waste heat recovery systems generate 19 MW and 25 MW of power. JK Cement chose Schneider Electric again for the second line, building the integrated foundation that carbon capture will depend on.
Another example is where one of India’s largest cement producers has standardized on an end-to-end EcoStruxure architecture that runs from crusher operations through to packing and unifies power and process management on a single platform.
The platform now operates across more than 100 sites and is designed to reduce capital costs by 10–20% and deliver energy savings of 2–3% or more, while giving teams near real-time visibility of plant performance. Another leading Indian cement manufacturer is working with us on its decarbonization and digital journey. Both are building the connected foundation that carbon capture will depend on.
No single technology will get cement to net zero but when power, process and energy work as one system, and carbon capture runs as reliably as the rest of the plant, pilots become everyday production.
That is the shift the industry needs and it is also why Schneider Electric was one of the first to join the GCCA’s Net Zero Value Chain Partners, a membership category created to support and help deliver the industry’s net zero mission.
Devan Pillay is heavy industry president, Schneider Electric.
