McCain Foods plant to generate power through food waste

McCain Foods’ Ballarat processing plant will soon be using food waste to generate its own power. The plant will be introducing equipment that takes solid and liquid by-products from the manufacturing process and converts them into a renewable biogas for heat and electricity generation, in what the company is calling a closed-loop success story.

A cogeneration system is expected to reduce CO₂ emissions by about 15,100 tonnes per year and will save 23,000 tonnes of waste — that’s around 1600 full garbage trucks.

“The electricity generated from this system is used to offset our reliance on the grid and the heat is used in our steam generation process to offset our reliance on natural gas,” said McCain Engineering Project Manager CO₂ Reduction Scott White.

“The way we approach reducing our CO₂ emissions needs to be innovative, future-proof and work within a circular economy — and our team is leading the way to identify the best opportunities at each of our sites,” White said.

The technology will produce 9,640,000 kWh of electricity and 78,593 GWh of gas annually, reducing McCain Foods Ballarat’s reliance on the grid by 19%.

“This new approach also gives us the ability to optimise our total energy usage by being able to match the output of the system based on solar production, factory consumption and biogas generation.”

In addition to introducing the cogeneration system, the plant will also be constructing a solar car park in 2023 that will reduce emissions by a further 12,100 tonnes and produce enough electricity to power 4500 homes. More than 1100 solar panels will serve the 8.2 MW system, which will provide shaded car spaces and power to two electric vehicle charging ports. Energy consumption from the grid is expected to be reduced by 20% through the solar panels.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Bitenkav2