Arla Foods Ingredients invests in Videbæk emissions reduction

Arla Foods Ingredients has completed a project to change the heating arrangement at production tower 4 at the Danmark Protein facility in Videbæk, Denmark. The site processes whey into ingredient and protein products.

The €8.3m investment allows the tower to draw heat from the plant’s existing steam network or from a newly installed electric heater. Its previous system used gas heating. The revised setup is intended to reduce natural-gas consumption and enable renewable electricity to provide part of the tower’s heat.

Calculations for tower 4 indicate annual carbon-dioxide savings of 2,500 tonnes. The company compares that amount with the yearly natural-gas heating use of more than 900 households. The tower is also expected to run entirely on renewable electricity for 23% of its operating time.

Mogens Bøgh Pedersen, director of the Danmark Protein plant, said the project improved operational reliability, supply security and the plant’s climate impact at the same time. “The fact that we can achieve such a large reduction through a single solution highlights the potential of electrifying our production,” he said.

The new system at tower 4 is operational. Arla Foods Ingredients is planning a comparable project for tower 5, where gas heating would be replaced with a combined steam-and-electric arrangement.

If both projects are completed, the company says the two towers could together reduce annual carbon-dioxide emissions by as much as 5,200 tonnes. That figure corresponds to the annual heating consumption of more than 1,900 households, according to the company.