HEAT & POWER s.r.l. - COGENERATION PLANTS FOOD INDUSTRY
Pasta Zara is the second largest producer of pasta in Italy and one of the largest in Europe. Heat & Power operates cogeneration plants food processing plant in the province of Trieste Muggia and Riese in the province of Treviso. In cogeneration plants food industry operates a cogeneration unit combustion engine of 2 MW. In the plant INTERESCO, Heat & Power Group company, has installed a second stage of heat recovery, pushing the unit's efficiency to values above 90 percent.
Cogeneration plants food industry in Pasta Zara are an excellent example of the application of cogeneration in the field of food industry. The energy, heat and electricity produced by CHP enters every stage of processing of the product. The low temperature heat is in fact used to heat water to 35-40 degrees, with the flour, is used to produce the dough, which is worked in the kneading actuated by electric energy generated by the CHP. The paste is then extruded into the desired format (from spaghetti to the most elaborate) and sent for drying, whose benches are heated by high-temperature heat from the CHP.
Finally, the dried paste is cooled to be able to be packaged in the packages for sale. Currently the cooling is carried out with the chillers fed by well water, but is studying the use of a refrigeration unit absorption lithium bromide operated with the heat medium temperature (around 120 degrees) of the CHP. A solution of this type would allow to use a closed cycle for cooling in cogeneration plants food industry (with obvious economic and environmental advantages) and a full exploitation of the primary energy.
