Abstract
As the new climate change driven regulations are brought into the force and energy prices and sustainability awareness increased, many companies are looking for the most efficient way to reduce their energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In this context, the food industry as one of the main energy consumers within the industry sector plays a significant role. This paper analyses the current energy consumption in a biscuit manufacturing company and considers a number of possible solutions for the energy efficiency improvements. The company uses modern and automated production processes and has signed a Climate Change Agreement. The experimental part involves identification of the energy users, as well as analysis of the energy bills, operation times, production schedule and on-site measurements of energy consumption. The opportunities for energy efficiency improvements, GHG emissions and costs reduction are investigated and additional information about the investments and payback period of the proposed improvements discussed. A number of opportunities for improvement are identified within the production area with a potential savings of 23%, which corresponds to EUR 40,534.00 and 190 tCO2, annually. It was found that the significant savings could be achieved by better managing the production lines and reducing operational hours from equipment, with no impact on productivity and no capital investment required. Further savings can be achieved through technical improvements requiring capital investments. All those improvements and savings make a significant contribution in accomplishing environmental targets set out by the FDF1 agreement.
Highlights
The agro-food and drink industry in the EU is the second leading manufacturing sector, responsible for 23% of global resource use, 28% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and 1.8% of the EU‘s water use [1,2]
[7]): consumption; ment,E—energy mixers, cutters and dough feeders. They account for 30%–43% of the overall energy use, which is in line with a number of studies previously reporting that ovens are the major contributors to inefficiency with higher energy consumption and CO2 emissions
It can be seen that 55% of the energy consumption comes from the production lines, chocolate storage systems and general packaging area while 45% to lights and offices
Summary
The agro-food and drink industry in the EU is the second leading manufacturing sector, responsible for 23% of global resource use, 28% of GHG emissions and 1.8% of the EU‘s water use [1,2]. The food supply chain in the UK contributes 20–30% to those emissions with outputs of 152Mt CO2 - 253Mt CO2 [3], at an estimated annual cost of GBP. This impact on the environment could be reduced with the implementation of various measurements and policy options, such as valorisation of food processing waste, water recovery, improvement of energy efficiency, sourcing of the local ingredients or using biodegradable packaging [5,6]. An investigation on the environmental profile of the biscuits supply chain showed that the main environmental hotspots arose from ingredients production and transportation activities [7]. Around 57% of the primary energy inputs into the whole industry are lost before reaching intended processing activities [11].
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