Milchwerke Oberfranken (GER)

Background

With an annual production volume of 47,600 metric tons, Milchwerke Oberfranken is a leading international manufacturer of specialty cheeses. The renowned business receives daily deliveries of 1.2 million liters of milk, which is processed at two high-tech plants to make hard, sliced, and soft cheese as well as prepared foods, such as breaded Camembert. The company wanted a future-proof energy solution to make operations at the plant, located in Wiesenfeld, roughly 120 km north of Nuremberg, more environmentally sustainable and cost-effective. It chose INNIO’s Jenbacher combined heat and power (CHP) unit, which also can supply back-up power during outages.

Sustainable solution

INNIO’s flexible solution, powered by a Jenbacher J612 unit, can autonomously supply the cheese makers with power and heat in island mode. With this solution, the risk of production stoppages due to power outages is reduced, and the company’s in-house energy supply means less power drawn from the public grid. Plus, this solution significantly lowers energy costs. While the high-temperature heat generated is used for pasteurization (heating milk), the steam is used to heat up the cheese maker’s cleaning systems and reheating. The CHP system at the Milchwerk Wiesenfeld dairy has a power output of 2 MWel and a thermal output of 1.8 MWth. This is equivalent to the average power consumption of about 4,000 German households and the heat consumption of 1,500 German households.

"INNIO’s flexible Jenbacher cogeneration plant gives us a dependable power and heat source for our dairy. That significantly reduces our current energy costs and increases the reliability of our energy supply while also markedly improving our environmental footprint."

Kai Henneberg, CTO at Milchwerke Oberfranken

Results

Even considering its broad usage, the high-efficiency Jenbacher cogeneration unit achieves an overall efficiency of roughly 86% and an electrical efficiency of 45%. In addition to significantly increasing the reliability of the supply and operating efficiency, this energy solution also considerably reduces emissions through the cogeneration of power and heat. In this way, the Jenbacher combined heat and power unit reduces annual CO₂ emissions by 5,000 metric tons*, resulting in a marked improvement in Milchwerke Oberfranken’s environmental footprint and paving the way to a greener energy future for Germany. The J612 unit is the 20,000th Jenbacher engine that INNIO has sold worldwide.

Customer benefits

• Greater profitability
• Reduced environmental impact
• Improved supply reliability
• Flexible use in island mode or grid-parallel mode