Supported by

EIE/04/246/S07.38678

 

 

BESS - Benchmarking and Energy management Schemes in SMEs

 

Measure List Meat Processing Industry

 

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Opportunity

Description

 

Energy management

Click here for general information

1. By replacing/ reducing hot water the amount of energy needed to increase its temperature is limited.

 
2. Many small refrigerators consume more electricity than one big one. Replacing several old refrigerators with one big refrigerator is worth consideration. An old refrigerator turns itself on frequently and consumes a lot of energy. In contrast, a new refrigerator is often more environmentally friendly. In purchasing a new refrigerator, we recommend paying attention to the energy consumption and environmental friendliness of the coolant (no CFCs or HFCs).

 

3. The condensers of refrigerators release heat drawn from the refrigerated spaces. This pumped heat can rise up to about three times the electric capacity taken in by the cooling compressor. With the help of water-cooled condensers, this heat can be recovered and used for heating process water up to about 35°C. A buffer tank will be required to bridge the asynchrony of heat demand and supply. Heat recovery for a water-cooled condenser of 550 kW with a buffer tank costs about €20.000. Savings on total gas consumption depend highly on the company's situation. Usually there are air-cooled condensers on the roof as backup for the water-cooled condensers. An energy-efficient alternative for this (at the same price) is a vapour condenser. Vaporizing water enables transferring the same amount of heat to the air with less (ventilation) energy. If an air-cooled condenser is used instead of a water-cooled condenser, it is more profitable to invest in controls for the refrigeration system.

 

4. About 10 % to 20 % of the total amount of heat to cool off is produced by lighting and (production) machines in refrigerated spaces. This heat production can be reduced by about 5 % by using better protection (isolation) for the (production) machines and by turning the machines on and off selectively.

 

5. The greatest improvements in the energy efficiency of refrigeration plants can be achieved by ensuring that sufficient condenser capacity is available, either by adding additional condensers or by regularly servicing and maintaining condensers in good working order.

Greater condenser capacity ensures the head pressure on the system is as low as possible.

 

6. Plate freezers used for the freezing of cartooned meat have a number of advantages over conventional air blast tunnel freezers. The major advantage is greater energy efficiency (plate freezers use 45-65% less power than air blast freezers).

 

7. Screw presses have proven to be a convenient mean of dewatering paunch manure. This unit is a screw press of which there are several designs and manufacturers. They perform a similar function dewater to varying degrees. They can be used to separate paunch solids from paunch washings from wet dump systems, or to dewater paunch from dry dump systems. Screw presses squeeze liquid out of the solids to produce a cake with relatively low moisture content. The dewater solids can then be easily transported or composted etc. The reduced moisture content of the paunch solids means that transport costs for haulage of the material can be significantly reduced.

 

8. Direct use of manure: Animal manures contain phosphorous, nitrogen, and also organic carbon which increases the fertility of fields when used.

 

9. Biodiesel from tallow: Collection and further disposal of tallow to satisfy the needs for transport fuel. It is about to be a simple chemical process, especially efficient for diesel vehicles.

 

10. Rational use of chemicals to avoid confusing and over dosing procedures. Use of environmentally friendly ones.

 

11. Profitability of investing in a combined heat and power (CHP) unit for the SMP plants was also investigated and found to be smaller than extended heat recovery or new heat pumps in the studied plants.

 

12. Use of membranes: Membranes can be a cost-effective alternative, especially if they increase by-product recovery In the food processing industry, traditional filtration, separation, and evaporation processes are typically used to separate, clarify, and purify foods and beverages.

 

13. Anaerobic digestion of wastewater and manure to produce biogas

(Methane).

 

14. A large amount of the heat transferred to the cold frame, necessary for maintaining a water temperature of about 60°C, is lost through evaporation. Covering the cold frame significantly reduces the loss of water vapour and therefore energy. Heat loss related to the import and export of the covered cold frame can be further reduced by installing strips. Savings of up to 30% on the gas consumption of the cold frame are possible. Vaporization in the dirty slaughtering hall will also be reduced significantly, therefore improving the working climate and enabling a lower ventilation flow rate constant. The costs of a covering construction and the related savings depend heavily on the current situation.

 

15. Replace electric boilers with gas-fired high-performance boilers. The performance of gas-fired boilers is much higher than that of electric boilers. This is due to the energy losses in generating electricity. If possible, it is recommended to install a gas-fired hot water system. This can be a geyser, gas boiler, or combination boiler. Different boilers have different performance and ease-of-use characteristics. Ask your boiler supplier for more information.

 

16. Use gas-fired steam generators instead of a steam boiler. Gas-fired steam generators have a better burn performance than steam boilers. The smoke gas temperature is also lower than in steam boilers and excess air can be reduced, which reduces flue losses. Also, a smaller load is often sufficient. The disadvantage of steam generators is that they have no steam supply.

Sterilizers

1. Replace continuous overflow sterilizers with intermittent devices using infrared sensors.

 

2. Ensure that continuous overflow devices are not overusing hot water by the use of inline flow restrictors

3. Consider retrofit of inline flow restrictors for existing sterilizers, to limit maximum flow rate.

 

4. Ensure sterilizers are double skin insulated types, to minimise heat loss and reduce potential for worker injury.

 

5. Consider whether some sterilizers can be removed.

Set the reserve boiler on "cold" and install a choke valve

1. If you have two central heating boilers, for example one with high performance (Hoog Rendement) and another with improved performance (Verbeterd Rendement), it is a good idea to install a choke valve with cascade control between them.


2. In autumn and spring, it is not always necessary to use both boilers.

 

3. Cascade control prevents unnecessary heating of the reserve boiler.


4. The attached choke valve prevents water from the heated boiler from warming up the water in the reserve boiler. This helps to prevent unnecessary energy loss.


5. A choke valve saves about 2% on heating fuel costs. Cascade control saves up to 10% on gas consumption.


6. The investment required for a cascade control system and a choke valve depends on the size of the connections (estimated price €400,-).

By-products

The identification of alternative uses or conversion processes for co-products should be a priority The rendering industry processes the parts not used for human consumption for technical use and for use as animal feed. This activity may generate large quantities of solid waste including the manure and bedding material generated during animal transport and lair age activities, as well as waste from processing steps.

 


 

General saving methods

 

Opportunity

Description

Packaging

Packaging has been recognised for some time as an important environmental issue, particularly for the food industry. For the meat industry, the message is that packaging must be designed to minimise waste (less packaging) and enable recycling, reuse or recovery (incineration with energy recovery).

Also the use of PVC and other chlorine containing plastics may need to be restricted.

 


 

 

                     


Note 1 The sole responsibility for the content of this publication lies with the authors. It does not represent the opinion of the Community.Β  The European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.