Cargill, an international producer and marketer of food, agricultural, financial and industrial products and services, runs a chocolate manufacturing facility in the UK. When the company wanted to make its system for heating chocolate at the site more cost effective and energy efficient, it looked to npower Business Solutions (nBS) for assistance.
Using inefficient electric immersion heaters to heat hot water for process heating of melted chocolate was proving to be a costly approach both financially and in terms of energy consumption. To combat this, nBS recommended a central gas boiler system to ensure that Cargill could benefit from tangible savings.
Solution
Cargill’s old system consisted of three hot water tanks heated by three electric immersion heaters per tank, to heat water supplied to the vats containing the ingredients to manufacture chocolate. The Energy Services Development Team at nBS designed and developed a solution which centralised the whole process by proposing a new gas connection off-site and a modern efficient gas fired condensing boiler.
Benefits
The new system brings many benefits to Cargill in terms of cost, efficiency and energy savings. nBS estimates that by switching from the old electric system to gas, Cargill will save 66% of its annual energy invoice, giving a monetary saving of approximately £69,000, and with a payback period of less than two years.
