After a full year of validated pilot operation on the Volta furnace, Saint-Gobain and AGC are committing to a full-scale hybrid electric flat glass furnace in Spain—targeting an 80% cut in natural gas use. Here's what it means for embodied-carbon specs and low-carbon glass supply.
From Pilot to Plant: A Low-Carbon Float Glass Line Gets a Location and a Timeline
The race to decarbonize float glass just moved from R&D to capital expenditure. Saint-Gobain and AGC have announced FurHy, a full-scale hybrid electric flat glass furnace to be built at Saint-Gobain's plant in Avilés, Spain—directly replacing the existing furnace. Construction is expected to start in January 2027, with production resuming in the second half of 2027.
The announcement follows a critical validation milestone. The VOLTA pilot furnace marks a decisive milestone in the demonstration of hybrid melting for flat glass, following one full year of continuous operation. Developed through a cooperation between AGC and Saint-Gobain and since its start-up in early 2025, the pilot furnace has delivered stable and consistent production, providing strong technological validation of the robustness of the hybrid concept.
In other words: the concept works at industrial scale, and the two largest flat glass players in Europe are now willing to bet a full production line on it.
What FurHy Actually Does
The Volta pilot at AGC's Barevka plant in Dubí, Czech Republic, established the operating model that FurHy will scale. The furnace was built to be 50% electrified and 50% burned by a combination of oxygen and gas.
That split, combined with dramatically increased use of recycled glass, drives the environmental numbers. The higher energy efficiency of the hybrid technology, combined with a 50% share of electricity (with certified renewable sourcing) and a significant increase in cullet use (88% in standard operation compared with 40% previously), delivers a 66% reduction in fossil fuel consumption and a 71% reduction in Scope 1+3 CO₂ emissions compared to reference.
For the Avilés project, the target is even more ambitious. The plant is projected to save approximately 265 GWh of natural gas per year, the equivalent of an 80% reduction in comparison with a standard gas furnace, enable the production of lower-carbon flat glass reaching the best existing international standards, and support the growing need for more sustainable solutions for the residential, non-residential and infrastructure markets in the region.
Why This Matters for the Spec Sheet
Float glass is one of the largest embodied-carbon line items in a typical curtain wall or window wall assembly. Every attempt to lower whole-building carbon eventually collides with the fact that the melt tank runs on natural gas. FurHy is a direct answer to that constraint.
A few practical implications for architects, envelope consultants, and product manufacturers:
- EPD math changes. A float line producing glass with 80% less gas consumption per unit output will materially shift the A1–A3 numbers in downstream Environmental Product Declarations. Fabricators sourcing from Avilés—or from future FurHy-style furnaces—will be able to publish substrate carbon figures that current gas-fired lines cannot match.
- LEED, BREEAM, and Buy Clean thresholds get easier. Projects chasing embodied-carbon caps under Buy Clean programs, LEED v4.1 MRc, or BREEAM Mat 01 will have a supply-side option that meaningfully lowers baseline glass carbon without requiring designers to specify aerogel, vacuum, or other niche technologies.
- Cullet becomes a strategic input. Running at 88% cullet versus a 40% baseline means fabricators, glaziers, and demolition contractors handling post-consumer and post-industrial glass are now feeding a genuinely different economic model. Expect more aggressive glass take-back and recycling programs from primary manufacturers as FurHy-class lines scale.
- European supply first, then North America. Avilés serves Iberia and adjacent European markets. North American specifiers watching this technology should treat it as a signal about where major manufacturers are heading, not as an immediately available product on this side of the Atlantic.
The Business Case Still Has to Close
The technology works. The economics are the harder problem. Moving toward large-scale deployment will require substantial investment, and ensuring a cost-effective balance between electricity and gas remains a key focus for the next phases of development.
That caveat is significant. Every hybrid furnace's carbon performance depends on the grid it runs on and the delivered price of electricity relative to natural gas. Avilés benefits from certified renewable electricity sourcing, which is what makes the Scope 1+3 math close. In markets where clean electricity is scarcer or gas is cheaper, the same furnace design will produce different results.
The Bigger Signal
FurHy joins a growing list of decarbonization bets on the primary glass side—from Cardinal's hot potassium carbonate carbon capture partnership to hydrogen trials at other European lines. What FurHy demonstrates is that the industry now has a validated, non-experimental pathway to cut roughly two-thirds of the fossil fuel consumption from a float line without abandoning float technology itself. For specifiers writing 30-year building envelopes today, that's the most important piece of the low-carbon glazing story to track.