Energy Management of an Industrial Dairy Plant for Assessing Sustainable Operational Conditions

Abstract

Among the great challenges for humanity are to reduce the effects of climate change and to reduce the carbon footprint produced; for this reason, energy management is vital, since, by doing so, about 43% of greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced. This article presents the development of the PEVI industrial evaluation program at Coolechera Ltda. The energy performance of its production processes was evaluated, from which the production energy diagram was constructed. Subsequently, the company's overall energy consumption was calculated, which was 518,213 kWh/month, and the annual energy costs of electricity and natural gas, which were $ 792982.6 and 916309.3 USD. From the energy analysis, the carbon footprint of the process was calculated, which was 0.04 Ton CO2/L. Finally, it was quantified that the boiler's improvement potential exceeds 11%, which, if implemented, would drastically reduce thermal energy costs and its impact on the carbon footprint.