Friday, March 29, 2024

Open Country scoops energy award

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Open Country has picked up the country’s top energy award for installing the world’s first electrode boiler for drying milk at its Southland Awarua plant, near Invercargill. The company was awarded the EECA Energy Excellence Award in the large user category at this year’s energy awards.
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Jason Tarrant, Open Country’s general manager for strategic projects, said the installation of the electrode boiler unit was not necessarily the cheapest energy option. The company’s development team arrived at the electrical option after a 12-month research project, examining sites in United States, China and Europe, prior to the pandemic.

The project represents the company’s sustainability focus, which includes the shift away from traditional coal-fired boiler technology. The company has not installed a coal-fired boiler since 2015.

The Open Country boiler is the first built specifically for drying milk, a high-energy process required to generate steam for the spray drying process, and the largest electrode boiler installed in the southern hemisphere.

Tarrant said on a simple cost basis the drier project would have been a coal-fired operation. 

“But “Open Country takes the right path, not the easy path.”  

The boiler is capable of drying down 60,000 litres of milk an hour into a high-quality functional milk powder. It also has the ability to heat cold water to full steam in under five minutes, compared to coal boilers’ six hours. 

Heating efficiency is high at 99.8%, compared to 72% with a coal boiler and the unit has near zero greenhouse gas emissions.

“We initially estimated the electrode boiler would produce 4650t less carbon dioxide compared to a coal boiler, but after six-month operating period we can now say that this reduction will be double that, around 9729t, the equivalent to removing the emissions of over 2000 cars from our roads a year.”

But Tarrant said the move to electricity is not without its issues. 

“Those are mainly of cost and availability of electricity, for both existing and new users. The North Island is quite hamstrung by electricity supply at present, with generation from non-green sources being met at present.”

In the future Tarrant said Open Country would continue to consider a range of coal alternatives, including electricity and biomass/gas fuels.

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