—W H I T E PA P E R

Improving energy efficiency
in the food and beverage industry

2

IMPROVING E N E RGY E FFICIE NCY—Opportunities to reduce energy use
in food and beverage production
The food and beverage industry provides the nutrition essential to our daily
lives and it will always be required. However, providing food for all 7 billion
people on the planet consumes a lot of energy.

It has been estimated that the food industry
consumes 30% of global energy and accounts for
20% of greenhouse gas emissions. 1 Demand forfood is likely to increase because the global
population is projected to grow to over 9 billion
people by 2050. 2 This, combined with the challengesof reversing climate change, mean that it is
becoming increasingly important to reduce boththe emissions from and energy used in the food andbeverage industry. This white paper takes a look atsome of the ways to improve energy efficiency
across the industry.

—The food industry
consumes 30% ofglobal energy.

IN THE FOOD AND BE VER AGE INDUSTRY

Assessing energy use in the food and beverage industry
Because of the importance of food production to society,companies, governments and authorities around theworld have assessed the amount of energy used in theindustry, and which parts of the value chain consume themost energy. For example, in the EU, the food andbeverage industry is one of the most energy-intensive
industrial sectors. Looking more closely, it is estimatedthat processing alone accounts for 28% of the totalenergy use in the EU. 3 While globally, food processing andtransport are estimated to account for about 40% ofend-use energy demand.4 As a result, leadingorganizations like the European Commission, as well asthe UN and the OECD, are trying to drive energy
efficiency measures throughout the industry. 5
Energy assessments guide decision-making at all levels.
At the government level, these assessments are industrywide reviews which are used to inform energy efficiency
policy and the development of new regulations. At thecorporate level, the assessments are consultants’ reportsthat give an overview of the business and its operations,and these are used to set sustainability goals andimprovement targets. However, it’s at the facility level
where the real changes are made. This is where newregulations and company guidelines are put into practice.
It's where the energy is used during food and beverage
production. And it’s where equipment and processes
can be updated and improved to reduce actual energy
consumption.

3—
Food processing in the EU
accounts for 28% of totalenergy consumption.
At the facility level, too, energy assessments help support
businesses in making better decisions and they are the firststep in improving energy efficiency. With the right tools,
customers can perform assessments themselves or they canask an expert service partner for help. Energy assessments
will provide the information and insights needed to identify
the energy saving potential of the installed electricalequipment, including motors and drives.
ABB offers expert Energy Appraisals as a service. In addition
to our in-depth knowledge of motors, drives, and food andbeverage processes, we can offer complete solutions toimprove energy efficiency and reduce energy costs.

IMPROVING E N E RGY E FFICIE NCY

4—
Identifying areas
to improve
In the food and beverage industry the processes that
consume the most energy vary by segment. In somesegments fans and pumps are responsible for most of
the energy use. For example, in the agriculture segment
these are feeding and ventilation applications for animals,
while in the dairy sector they are cooling and refrigeration.
In other segments milling and mechanical processing use
the most energy. For example, milling and centrifuges insugar processing, and grain milling in the ingredients
sector. And in confectionary, milling as well as conches,compressors and mixers use most of the energy.

—A sugarcane mill was using asteam turbine to run their crusher.
When they replaced the turbinewith a variable speed drive andelectric motor they reduced
energy use by over 40%.⁸—
The processes that consume the mostelectricity in the food industry rely on motors.6
Percentage ofenergy consumption

Most of these processes rely on electric motor systems,
including steam systems, pumps and compressors, andheating, cooling and refrigeration systems. However, althoughelectricity consumption in the industry is high, electric motor
systems also offer opportunities to save energy, especiallyin processes that do not run full speed all the time.

—
Relative energy in sugarcane processing.⁷
Main costdrivers

Water use

Processing
efficiency

Energyefficiency

Max.
sugarrecovery

35

Relative energy consumption(calculated for the whole plant)

17.5 %

Cane preparation

25 %Milling

12.5 %

Juice purification

17.5 %

Sugar crystallization

12.5 %

Sugar centrifuges

15 %

Other

30
252015

1050 Cold Ventilation Pumps Compressed Other
supplyair

Process Lighting
motors technology

Let’s take a look at sugar processing to illustrate some ofthe potential savings that can be found. Sugar production
is very energy intensive and therefore sugar factories often
have their own power plants. These power plants generally
operate on a cogeneration basis, producing both steam andelectricity. The amount of energy used by each process step
varies and, for example, sugarcane preparation and millinguse around 40% of all the energy used in a plant. However,many older sugar factories use a large amount of steam
from their co-generation boilers to power their processes,
which is inefficient. Converting steam-driven processes
to electrically driven ones can significantly improve energy
efficiency. For example, an ABB customer was using a steam
turbine to run their crusher. When they replaced the turbinewith a variable speed drive and electric motor they reduced
energy use by over 40%.

IN THE FOOD AND BE VER AGE INDUSTRY

5—Ways toimprove energy efficiency
Once inefficiencies have been identified, then the most effective solution or
combination of solutions can be proposed. This is where domain expertise andknowledge of food and beverage applications is vital. In particular, it is important tounderstand how modernizing and upgrading individual components will affect theprocess as a whole. It’s also useful to know what the state-of-the-art is and what
new options are available.
There are several technologies on the market thathave great potential for reducing energy consumption
throughout the production chain, including digitallyenabled services. In this section, we will take a lookat some of the possibilities that these offer.
Optimize operations with variable speed drives
Many applications in the food and beverage industry areusually run at partial load, like fans, pumps, compressors
and conveyor belts. However, these traditionally use
mechanical control methods like valves, brakes andthrottles to control their speed. In this kind of system,
the motor is doing more work than necessary and energy
is being lost through the mechanical speed control.
Variable speed drives (VSDs) offer a more efficient way ofrunning applications at partial load because they can control
the speed and torque of an electric motor directly. Thiseliminates the need for mechanical speed control andoversized motors. With direct control of a motor, it can becontrolled to match the actual process demand, enabling
applications to run with high efficiency at a range ofdifferent speeds. As a result, VSDs can significantly improveenergy efficiency throughout whole production chains.
ABB offers VSDs and control software that, together
with our application expertise, can be used to optimize
various processes throughout the food and beverageindustry, ensuring that motor-driven applications, suchas compressors, pumps, extruders, conches and conveyors,
do the right amount of work at the right time.

—
Adding a variable speed drive to a fan,pump or compressor can typicallyreduce energy use by 25%.9—Globally, around 14% of foodproduced is lost before it
reaches the consumer.10
Another benefit of VSDs is that they enable precise speed
control and this capability can be used to prevent energy andfood going to waste during production. This is because
maintaining the right machine speed, e.g. in mixing, is very
important in the food industry, and entire product batches
can be ruined if the ingredients are mixed too fast or too
slow. However, since VSDs can ensure the correct mixing
speed, they can also help minimize food waste and theassociated energy consumption during production. Inaddition, because food waste is also a major source ofgreenhouse gas emissions, reducing waste during
production also improves a company’s sustainability.

6

IMPROVING E N E RGY E FFICIE NCY

Modernize to more efficient motors
In addition to adding VSDs to improve the efficiency ofexisting applications, upgrading motors to more efficientmodels can also improve the overall efficiency of food andbeverage applications. Currently, many motors in use
in the food and beverage industry have IE3, IE2 or even
IE 1 efficiency. However, motors with much better efficiency
are available. For example, induction motors are available
with up to IE4 efficiency and synchronous reluctancemotors, like ABB’s SynRM motors, are available with IE5efficiency. Since each IE class delivers 20% lower losses,
upgrading offers the potential for clear energy and costsavings. Furthermore, in some markets modernization isalso supported by tax breaks, government grants and otherfinancial incentives to encourage businesses to improvetheir energy efficiency.
Recover energy from processes with regenerative drives
Although VSDs can run applications at the optimum speed
without the need for brakes, some applications in the foodand beverage industry do require some form of braking.
For example, in the sugar industry batch centrifuges areused to separate sugar crystals from molasses and theseuse repeated cycles of acceleration and deceleration.
If traditional mechanical braking systems are used ina process like this, the kinetic energy of the rotating
centrifuge is lost as heat as the brakes are applied. Ifelectrical braking is used in conjunction with a VSD,
the kinetic energy is dissipated through braking resistors,
and again it is lost as heat.

However, using regenerative drives, it is possible to use
electrical braking and recover the energy as electricity.
The energy recovered by regenerative drives can either beused elsewhere in the plant, for example, in the acceleration
phase of another centrifuge, or it can be fed back into thegrid. By recovering energy that would otherwise be lost,regenerative drives can improve overall energy efficiency,
as well as reducing or eliminating the need for coolingsystems that handle the waste heat.
Reduce electrical energy consumption and CO₂
emissions with energy efficiency solutions and services
Plug and play digital solutions securely collect data fromapplications, providing deeper status insights and a trueindication of the condition of the installed base. Bycollecting and analyzing information directly from yourpowertrain, cloud-based technologies are utilized to help
understand and predict any potential downtime, enabling
the scheduling of maintenance services at a time that issuitable.
Using ABB’s domain expertise and digital solutions helps
you make better decisions to identify potential energy
savings and CO₂ emission reductions as well as to track
and trace equipment to enable efficient operations,reduce waste, and comply with regulations.
Energy efficient solutions and services can also be
implemented by modernizing motors and drives at the righttime based on data and advanced analytics to determine
optimal energy savings, minimize waste through circularservice models, and improve financial returns for specificassets and applications.

IN THE FOOD AND BE VER AGE INDUSTRY

7CASE STUDY

Campbell’s Australia reduces energycosts by 14% over 1 year
To help them meet their sustainability targets,
Campbell's Australia's Shepparton plant in Victoria
installed an ABB SynRM motor and drive package in theirrefrigeration plant. After 12 months, the investment had
clearly reduced their energy costs by 14% and reduced
their CO2 emissions. Thanks to this success, Campbell'sShepparton have since added another three ABB SynRM
variable speed drive packages to their facilities.

Source: Campell's Australia

CASE STUDY

New sugar factory designed for
optimal efficiency
Canal Sugar is constructing a major new agro-industrial
complex in Egypt. As part of their investment they selectedvariable speed drives from ABB to run 15 batch and
10 continuous centrifuges. Using these energy efficientand state-of-the-art systems, they aim to increase thenumber of cycles and raise output, while also reducing
energy consumption by 25% per tonne of massecuite
compared to traditional machines. ABB will also deliver
a multidrive system that is customized for regenerative
operation. This will further save energy by recovering energy
generated by centrifuges in the braking stage of the cycle
and transferring it the centrifuges that are accelerating.

Source: Canal Sugar

8IMPROVING E N E RGY E FFICIE NCY—Conclusion
Although the food and beverage industry relies ona lot of energy intensive processes, there are many
opportunities to optimize energy efficiency. Technologies
and solutions are available now which can significantly
reduce energy consumption, and service partners like
ABB can also provide expert advice and services to help
businesses optimize their whole operations. Better still,energy savings also mean cost savings, so businesses canexpect attractive Return On Investment (ROI) and paybacktimes.

References(1)		 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations,		 Energy-Smart Food for People And Climate, Issue Paper, 2011, page III, http://www.fao.org/3/i2454e/i2454e.pdf(2)		 United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, World Population Prospects: The 2017 Revision:
Key Findings and Advance Tables, page 2.), https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/publications/files/wpp2017_keyfindings.pdf(3) Monforti-Ferrario, F. Energy Use in the EU Food Sector: State of Play and Opportunities for Improvement; European Union; Joint Research		 Centre; Institute for Energy and Transport and Institute for Environment and Sustainability: Ispra, Italy, 2015, page 7.
(4)		 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Energy-Smart Food for People And Climate, Issue Paper, 2011, page 11,		http://www.fao.org/3/i2454e/i2454e.pdf(5)		 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Improving Energy Efficiency in the Agro-Food Chain, 2017,		
www.oecd.org/officialdocuments/publicdisplaydocumentpdf/?cote=COM/TAD/CA/ENV/EPOC(2016)19/FINAL&docLanguage=En(6)		 Monforti-Ferrario, F. Energy Use in the EU Food Sector: State of Play and Opportunities for Improvement; European Union;		 Joint Research Centre; Institute for Energy and Transport and Institute for Environment and Sustainability: Ispra, Italy, 2015, page 60.
(7)		 Based on ABB measurements and calculations.
(8)		 Based on ABB customer experience.
(9)		 For an example of the calculations involved, see “Program Insights: Variable frequency drives,”		 Consortium for Energy Efficiency, 2019, https://www.cee1.org/content/variable-frequency-drives(10) FAO. 2019. In Brief: The State of Food and Agriculture 2019. Moving forward on food loss and waste reduction.		 Rome, page 5. http://www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/ca6122en

IN THE FOOD AND BE VER AGE INDUSTRY9© Copyright 2021 ABB. All rights reserved.
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