Hybrid and electric ovens: flexible, reliable and cheaper to run

Gas, electricity or both: an ESTEE hybrid oven chooses the cheapest and most reliable energy source at any moment. ESTEE has already built hybrid and fully electric powder coating ovens in the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Germany, both new and by converting existing ovens.

How a hybrid oven works

In a hybrid oven, a gas burner and electric heating elements share the same burner chamber. The electric heating is sized so that the oven can run fully electric in normal operation. At start-up, when the oven has to reach temperature quickly, the gas burner helps out. This keeps the electrical connection limited, without compromising heat-up time.

A proprietary ESTEE control algorithm divides the heat demand between both sources. The temperature in the oven stays uniform, while the electrical power never exceeds what the grid or your connection can handle. That is peak shaving: you avoid expensive peaks and stay within your contracted capacity.

100% electric

when there is sufficient electrical power

Hybrid

when there is not enough electrical power

100% gas

when there is no electrical power

Hydrogen-ready

ready for the future

Why hybrid?

• Lowest operating cost — you heat with whichever energy source is cheapest at that moment. With low or even negative electricity prices, that becomes a real advantage.
• Reliable — if one energy source fails or is temporarily too expensive, the line simply keeps running on the other.
• More from your solar panels — your own solar power goes straight to the oven, even when the grid is congested.
• A step towards CO₂-neutral — with green electricity the oven becomes emission-free, without having to switch everything over at once.

Robust construction

The electric heating sits in robust, modular cassettes, designed for reliable operation year after year and easy maintenance. We build the electrical cabinet ourselves, protected against the high short-circuit currents that come with large transformers.

Electrifying your existing oven

You don’t always need a new oven. ESTEE also converts existing gas-fired drying and curing ovens to hybrid, even if the oven was not built by us. Depending on the oven, there are two routes:

• Adapting the existing burner chamber — if there is enough space, we integrate the electric heating into the current chamber. In a drying oven, we often replace a heat exchanger with an open burner tube: that creates space and gives higher efficiency.
• Adding a new burner chamber — if space is too tight, we build a new hybrid burner chamber onto the existing oven, with new fans, a modulating burner and electric heating.

Together with you, we determine which electrical power makes sense, based on the current gas capacity, your available grid connection and how your line operates.

Installations

• Contour (Winterswijk, NL) — the 35-year-old ovens were replaced within one month by a hybrid curing oven that regulates steplessly from 100% gas to 100% electric, with an A-cap air lock and residual heat to the drying oven. Gas consumption fell by a factor of 20, and the oven uses much more power from the company’s own solar panels. Also read Contour’s own story (in Dutch).
• NanoCoat (Lüdinghausen, DE) — hybrid ovens running on electricity or propane, hydrogen-ready, with a heat cascade to the drying oven and pretreatment. Read the case.
• Skylux (Harelbeke, BE) — a large powder coating line with 100% electric ovens and flexible extraction. Read the case.
• Triangle (FR) — a textbook example of hybrid: gas burner and electric heating sit on the same burner chamber, controlled from the dedicated electrical cabinet.
• Jonkman (NL) and SLA (FR) — here too, powder coating lines run on hybrid or electric ESTEE ovens.

Electric ovens work together with our other measures against energy loss, such as air locks, heat recovery and smart extraction. Read more about our approach to sustainability.