THERMAL ENERGY CONSUMPTION DURING MILK PROCESSING IN A COMMERCIAL DAIRY PLANT: A CASE STUDY

Abstract

Energy is important component of dairy industry. Dairy industry processing mainly based on heat transfer that’s required thermal energy. Thermal energy conservation in dairy plant means to develop a methodology to achieve energy saving to reduce energy costs in processing system. The aim of this study was to investigate consumption of thermal energy of market milk and dairy product per tone of product. The data was analyzed of a commercial dairy plant in January to march 2021.In dairy processing plant, steam was utilized in milk pasteurization, cream pasteurization, butter processing, ghee making, dahi making, butter milk thermization were found as 16.70, 26.60, 47.22, 540.0, 72.50 & 59.90 kg per 1000 kg product, respectively and corresponding thermal energy were45.1, 71.8, 127.9, 1458.0, 195.8 and 161.7 MJ per 1000 kg product processing. The average steam consumption of crate washing was reported as 84.3 kg steam per 1000 crate. The average refrigeration load requirement of dairy plant was found 172.9 TR and corresponding running cost of refrigeration unit was found Rs. 14.25 per TR per hour. The data of this case study was compared with previous study in interpretation of those results.