Arla Foods CHP plant

Edina supplied innovative natural gas and biogas fuelled Combined Heat and Power (CHP) technology as part of Arla Food’s long-term growth and environmental strategy to develop the world’s first zero-carbon milk processing facility.

The ambitious £150million project uses cutting edge renewable energy and CHP technology to create a zero-carbon vision. The biogas is created on-site using anaerobic digestion, which utilises production waste from the dairy.

Arla Foods has established a three-company circular economy model involving McDonald’s, and neighbouring cooking oil recycling company Olleco. Food waste from McDonald’s is converted to energy by Olleco and used to power Arla’s site, which in turn produces organic milk for McDonald’s.

CHP presented an ideal solution for the dairy as the excess heat created as part of the power generation process is captured and reused in processes like pasteurisation, homogenisation and cleaning circuits.

Engineering, IT and facilities services company, NG Bailey, awarded Edina the contract to supply, install and maintain two MWM TCG 2020 V20 gas engines capable of generating an electrical output of 2MW each and 1.9MW thermal output.