IN Brief:
- Arla has invested approximately €8.3 million in a new heating system for Production Tower 4 at its Danmark Protein plant.
- The tower can switch between the existing steam system and electric heating, cutting annual CO₂ emissions by approximately 2,500 tonnes.
- A similar Tower 5 project could take combined annual savings to 5,200 tonnes, with Arla considering wider deployment at other sites.
Arla Foods Ingredients has completed an €8.3 million heating-system investment at its Danmark Protein plant in Videbæk, Denmark, allowing Production Tower 4 to switch between the site’s existing steam network and a new electric heater.
The project is expected to reduce natural gas consumption sufficiently to cut annual carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 2,500 tonnes. Arla calculates that this is equivalent to the yearly natural-gas heating demand of 919 average Danish homes.
Videbæk processes whey into a range of protein and ingredient products, making thermal energy an important part of the plant’s production infrastructure. Tower 4 previously operated with a gas heater, while the new arrangement allows part of its heat demand to be transferred to electricity without removing the existing steam option.
Arla estimates that Tower 4 will be capable of operating entirely on renewable electricity for 23% of the time. The ability to alternate between electricity and steam gives the site greater freedom to use power when wind and solar generation are abundant and electricity prices are correspondingly lower, while reducing electrical demand when market conditions tighten.
Mogens Bøgh Pedersen, Director of the Danmark Protein plant at Arla Foods Ingredients, said: “This is one of those investments where we simultaneously improve operational reliability, strengthen security of supply and reduce our climate impact. The fact that we can achieve such a large reduction through a single solution highlights the potential of electrifying our production.”
The project adds flexibility to a heat system that remains central to large-scale whey processing. Rather than committing the tower to a single replacement energy source, the plant can retain steam when required while bringing electricity into the operating mix, reducing its direct dependence on gas without discarding established infrastructure.
That approach also links production more closely to conditions on the Danish electricity system. High renewable generation can create periods in which additional industrial demand is useful to the grid, while tighter supply creates an incentive to reduce consumption. A plant able to vary its energy source has more scope to respond to those changes than one whose heat demand is tied exclusively to gas or electricity.
For food manufacturers, electrifying process heat has often proved more complicated than switching lower-temperature or auxiliary loads. Production equipment has to receive sufficient thermal input continuously, while changes to utilities cannot be allowed to undermine throughput, reliability, cleaning, or process control.
Arla’s solution at Videbæk retains two routes for supplying that heat. The company says the resulting flexibility improves operational reliability and strengthens security of supply alongside the emissions reduction, making the project an operating investment as well as a decarbonisation measure.
A second conversion is already being planned for Production Tower 5. Its gas heating system would similarly be replaced by a combined steam and electric arrangement, extending the approach across another major production asset at the site.
If both tower projects are completed as planned, Arla expects their combined annual carbon dioxide saving to reach as much as 5,200 tonnes. Using the same Danish Energy Agency assumptions applied to Tower 4, the company calculates that this corresponds to the annual natural-gas heating demand of 1,911 households.
The scale of the second-stage saving would also turn the installation from an isolated engineering project into a broader site strategy. Production plants normally contain equipment installed at different times, with differing heat requirements and utility connections, so a solution that performs reliably on one tower provides a stronger basis for deciding whether similar conversions are practical elsewhere.
Paul van Rooij, Vice President, Supply Chain at Arla Foods Ingredients, said: “In addition to delivering substantial CO2e savings, this investment also represents a very strong business case. It is therefore a solution that we will naturally seek to scale across our other sites.”
That wider deployment would depend on the operating conditions at individual factories, but Videbæk provides Arla with a live industrial installation against which future projects can be assessed. The economics will be influenced by electricity and gas prices, available electrical capacity, existing steam systems, production schedules, and the amount of heat that can practically be shifted between energy sources.
The investment sits alongside other work to reduce fossil-fuel use at Danmark Protein, including a separate heat-pump project intended to electrify heat generation elsewhere at the site. Together, the projects point towards a production system in which gas demand is progressively reduced through several technologies rather than one wholesale utility replacement.
Tower 4 is now operational under the new arrangement, leaving its actual performance under changing production and electricity-market conditions as the next measure of the project. Tower 5 will provide the more important test of repeatability if its planned conversion proceeds.
