The conversion of a coal-fired boiler to one using woodchips at the McCain Foods plant in Timaru will be the equivalent of removing 11,000 cars’ carbon dioxide (hauhā) from the road.
The project has cost $5.6 million, of which McCain received $2.9m from the government’s Decarbonising Industry Fund.
The new boiler will remove 30,000t of carbon from the atmosphere, 95% of the plant’s total carbon emissions.
“Our energy and industry sectors make up 27% of our total emissions,” Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods said.
“We must keep decarbonising as fast as we can so we can keep up with the direction the world is moving in.”
Alongside this conversion McCain has also implemented a heat-recovery system, using mechanical vapour recompression to reduce steam demand in what is a first for this industry in New Zealand.
The technology (hangarau) recovers waste heat from the fryer for use elsewhere in the facility and will reduce total energy consumption and fuel use by more than 37,000 GJ/year, which is roughly equivalent to the electricity used by 1400 households.
“These types of projects show that by prioritising demand reduction and energy efficiency you can make fuel switching easier,” Woods said.
“These are lessons that can be shared with, and replicated by, many other businesses to further help reduce our overall carbon footprint.”
