Campden BRI and the University of Newcastle upon Tyne are
co-operating with organisations from Austria, Germany, Poland and Spain in an
EU project to help the European food and beverage industry improve energy
efficiency and reduce fossil carbon emissions, thus increasing competitiveness.
The project was
launched in April 2013 and is co-funded by the Intelligent Energy Programme of
the European Union. It mainly addresses dairies, bakeries, the meat industry,
the fish industry, cereals, and animal feed, breweries and producers of fruit
juice.
The project
consortium will conduct 200 energy analyses in food and drink companies,
looking at a company’s energy flows (especially the generation of heat and cold
and their use in production processes) to determine possible measures for
energy efficiency improvement, and options for using renewable energy sources –
such as solar, thermal or biomass. From this group, 20 companies will be chosen
for more detailed analysis, and five participants willing to implement measures
within the project duration will be able to benefit from additional guidance.
This is expected to lead to an actual emission reduction of 600 tons of fossil
CO2 per year.
The consortium
will combine technological expertise of food and drink production with
knowledge on energy efficiency and renewable resources to help users identify
tailor-made solutions for optimising their processes and energy supply. At the
core will be a calculation tool for balancing and optimising energy and
material flow, which will incorporate the calculation of primary energy use and
CO2 emissions, heat integration, use of efficiency and renewable energy
technologies, calculation of profitability and the assessment of suitable
process technologies. These calculations will be supported by guidelines for
implementation and long lasting energy management in SMEs.
The consortium
will also address the question of funding mechanisms, as lack of financing is
often a barrier for the uptake of innovative technologies to harness renewable
energy sources or the implementation of energy efficiency measures, especially
for SMEs.
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| Challah (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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