Polish dairy reduces energy costs with Grasso V range

Mlekpol, reportedly the largest Polish dairy cooperative and one of the leading producers of ultra-high-temperature milk (UHT milk), has announced upgrading its facilities at its Grajewo and Mrągowo plants, and awarding the contracts to the GEA Group, with the aim of producing ice water (approximately 1°C) reliably and cost effectively.

According to Mlekpol, while modernising its refrigeration plant, the most important criteria were maximum energy efficiency and optimisation during partial-load operation. On the basis of optimised partial-load system behaviour, GEA, therefore, selected the newly marketed piston compressors from the GEA Grasso V range as replacement for the old systems in both plants, Mlekpol elaborated, and explained that to cover the requirement of approximately three to four MW cooling duty, the dairy installed four GEA Grasso V1100 units in Grajewo, and five in Mrągowo. These compressors, with ammonia refrigerant, each provide up to 830 kW cooling output. Since milk production does not always need maximum refrigeration output, these piston compressors were outfitted with frequency converters, as were the fans for the condensers and the pumps for the ice water.

The GEA Grasso control system automatically assures efficient operation of the refrigerating compressors, and as a result, intervention into the control system is necessary only for new programming or in the case of irregularities during operation, the announcement claimed. In this context, the system is connected via a virtual private network (VPN) to GEA Service and alarm reports are additionally issued to the Smartphones of the Mlekpol team of technicians and to the monitors of the Technical Department, it added.