The Carlsberg facility in Xichang is enjoying a number of benefits that they are operating with Alfa Laval’s T25 gasketed plate heat exchanger (GPHE) as a vapour condenser, recycling hot water produced from wort vapour and using it to pre-heat the next wort batch. Total steam consumption of wort pre-heating and boiling has dropped by around 10% as a result.
The replacement of the old shell and tube (S&T) vapour condenser with Alfa Laval’s GPHE technology has had a significant positive impact on the operation, principally through increasing the temperature of the heating water at this key point in the process by around 4°C.
It means less steam is required to get the wort to boiling point at the next stage in the process and means the brewery moves forward with a sustainable solution. In the first five months of operation Carlsberg reduced steam consumption by 314 kg per batch, so with eight batches a day over 300 days annual operation, this adds up to a saving of 750 tonnes of steam or 727 MWh per year, and reduces annual CO2 emissions by nine tonnes.