85 Energy Efficiency Measures
Vacuum-based drying and degassing
- Category: Process-specific
- Area: Food processing
- Sub Area: Vegetable and animal oils and fats
- Implementation Effort :
- Saving Potential :
Instead of drying and degassing oil under ambient air conditions, water ring pumps can create an auxiliary vacuum. The vacuum can help to reduce the amount of thermal energy needed for the process and also minimises oil oxidation.
Check heat recovery from chemical reactions
- Category: Process-specific
- Area: Food processing
- Sub Area: Vegetable and animal oils and fats
- Implementation Effort :
- Saving Potential :
Some chemical reactions such as the hardening of oils are exothermic processes, meaning that heat is released during the reaction. Checking on whether this energy can be recovered for other purposes can help to decrease energy demand in conventional heating systems.
Optimise milk homogenisation method
- Category: Process-specific
- Area: Food processing
- Sub Area: Dairy products
- Implementation Effort :
- Saving Potential :
Instead of homogenising the entire milk by itself, cream is mixed together with a small proportion of skimmed milk with an optimum fat content of 12%. Both together are then homogenised. The remaining skimmed milk flows to the pasteurisation section of the pasteuriser and then mixed together with the homogenised cream and put through the final heating section. This technique requires a significantly reduced amount of homogeniser ultimately leading to a reduced energy consumption.
Use low pressure homogenisation device
- Category: Process-specific
- Area: Food processing
- Sub Area: Dairy products
- Implementation Effort :
- Saving Potential :
Conventional homogenisation equipment usually requires high working pressures. Novel equipment designs allow to use lower pressures. As pressure levels and energy consumption are closely related, a reduction in pressure allows leads to a reduction in energy consumption.
Single continuous process for UHT milk production
- Category: Process-specific
- Area: Food processing
- Sub Area: Dairy products
- Implementation Effort :
- Saving Potential :
The production of UHT milk in a single continuous process (without intermediate pasteurization) from cold raw milk is possible and reduces energy consumption. For this purpose, the raw milk is preheated, separated and homogenized, and then it is directly treated at UHT temperature before being transferred to aseptic tanks.
Heat exchanger for continuous pasteurizers
- Category: Process-specific
- Area: Food processing
- Sub Area: Dairy products
- Implementation Effort :
- Saving Potential :
The pasteurization process generally requires several devices. A continuous pasteurizer, which combines several process steps, includes sections for heating, temperature maintenance and cooling. Here, energy consumption (as well as wastewater generation) can be reduced by using continuous circulation heat exchangers.
Use of multi-stage milk-powder drying
- Category: Process-specific
- Area: Food processing
- Sub Area: Dairy products
- Implementation Effort :
- Saving Potential :
For milk powder production, the drying process requires several drying steps. For new installations, the use of a multi-stage device is recommended since the multi-stage operation includes a spray drying process in combination with a downstream dryer. This technique allows the milk product to leave the system with lower residual product moisture and saves energy.
Heat recovery in proteine separation
- Category: Process-specific
- Area: Food processing
- Sub Area: Grain mill products, starches and starch products
- Implementation Effort :
- Saving Potential :
The protein separation of potatoes is carried out under elevated temperatures and can therefore be optimized by using the heat contained in the hot potato juice to preheat the next load of potatoes as compared to disposing of the hot juice.