GEA has provided Britvic, one of UK’s leading soft drinks manufacturers, with a heat recovery system at its Beckton site, in London.
The installation will cut the factory’s carbon emissions by an estimated 1,200 tonnes annually – equivalent to the annual energy usage of around 500 UK homes.
At its Beckton site, Britvic produces 2,000 drinks every minute, including many of the UK's most popular beverages such as Robinsons, Tango and Pepsi MAX. GEA is supplying two industrial ammonia heat pumps and a large thermal storage tank.
For Britvic, the project is a major step toward its goal of reducing direct carbon emissions by 50 per cent by 2025 and achieving net zero by 2050.
Britvic director of sustainable business, Sarah Webster, said the challenge with this brown-field project was how the improvements support its journey to reduce Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions which are part of the company’s science-based targets and Healthier People, Healthier Planet sustainability strategy.
Britvic will convert much of its process heating from natural gas steam boilers to a carbon-free heat recovery systems driven by heat pumps.
The new heat recovery system, designed and supplied by GEA, reuses low temperature waste heat from the existing production system.
This waste heat was previously released into the atmosphere and will now be used to heat hot water to 92°C, which will be distributed throughout the plant.
Webster said this will decarbonise 50 per cent of the site's heat demand by using less gas in the traditional steam boilers and shifting the heat source away from fossil fuels. A valved connection is provided for up to 750 kW of heat which will be recovered in the future from other sources.
Beverage sales manager at GEA’s liquid & powder technologies division, Matthew Hadwen, said upgrading legacy industrial steam heating systems and integrating these with heat pump technology is a challenge.
“At GEA, we can supply heat pumps and integrated process heat exchanger skids as one solution. This clearly sets us apart from our competition,” Hadwen said.