There are over 30,000 food and beverage processing plants in the US, which account for 8% of US manufacturing emissions. Annually, the food and beverage industry produces 96 million metric tons of CO2, which is equivalent to the annual emissions from more than 21 million cars. Much of these emissions come from process heating and cooling, with over 60% of on-site energy being used to power processes like refrigeration and food preparation. Technologies like Skyven Arcturus, a mechanical vapor recompression steam-generating heat pump, can harness and upgrade that on-site heat, using it to produce steam with zero Scope 1 emissions.
Although a wide range of industrial processes are used to transform agricultural products into food, some of the most common heat sources at food and beverage facilities include:
Refrigeration Equipment
- Refrigeration and process cooling: Safe food production requires around-the-clock refrigeration or cold storage, which is typically carried out using ammonia refrigeration systems. Heat absorbed by the refrigeration equipment is rejected to the atmosphere or a cooling loop at temperatures up to 80 °F.
- Equipment includes: Refrigeration compressors, process chillers, refrigerant condensers
Exhaust
- Evaporation: Evaporators and dryers are used to remove excess water from food products like condensed milk or tomato paste. Evaporative processes generate hot, humid exhaust gasses, which are released to the atmosphere at temperatures around 200 degrees °F.
- Cooking: Ovens and fryers are used for cooking processes like baking, and generate exhaust at much higher temperatures in excess of 500 °F.
- Equipment includes: Dryer exhaust, process oven exhaust, fryer exhaust, evaporator surface condenser
Decarbonizing with Skyven
Galileo, Skyven’s first-of-its kind software modeling tool, can identify potential heat sources for decarbonization projects at your facility. With Galileo, we can quickly identify large opportunities for clean process heat at your facility, done in hours instead of months of on-site consultation. To date, Skyven has worked with manufacturers at over 60 food and beverage facilities to identify opportunities for clean process heat.
If you are ready to decarbonize your food and beverage facility or want to learn more about decarbonization options, we’d love to have a conversation.
Skyven is an Energy-as-a-Service provider that delivers clean process heat to industrial facilities at prices lower than natural gas. We do this by identifying, funding, and building decarbonization solutions at your facility, then maintaining them for the life of our contract.
Learn more about the Skyven process here, or reach out to sales@skyven.co to get in touch.
