As part of a major customer event on 18 October at the GE Distributed Power business headquarters in Jenbach, the 20 000th Jenbacher gas engine to roll off the line was ceremonially handed over to Ludwig Weiss, the director of Milchwerke Oberfranken, a leading manufacturer of cheese products.

In addition to the order for a natural gas-powered Jenbacher J612 gas engine, together with its control system, Milchwerke Oberfranken also signed a 10-year service contract. Energas BHKW GmbH, an authorised partner of the GE Distributed Power business in Southern Germany, handled the order. The commissioning of the combined heat and power system is planned for early 2019.

Bridge to a greener future

The CHP system will be used to generate power, steam for heating and hot water for pasteurisation at the company’s site in Wiesenfeld, near Coburg, approximately 120 km north of Nuremberg. Due to this diverse use of its output, the plant achieves an overall efficiency of around 86 %. The electrical output is 2 MW and the thermal output 1.8 MW. This corresponds to the power consumption of almost 4000 average German households and the heat consumption of 1500. With annual savings of 5000 metric tons of CO2, the plant will make an important contribution to achieving the Federal government’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% by 2020, compared to 1990 levels.

Flexibility

The plant is characterised by its high flexibility, says Jenbacher. It can run in island-mode and supply the dairy facility with energy independently or it can be operated in grid-parallel mode. If the CHP system delivers more energy than is needed on-site, it is fed into the public grid.

“With our technology, we are creating a bridge to a greener energy future for Germany. Our Jenbacher engine, as part of a combined heat and power plant, does more than just ensure the energy supply of the Milchwerke Oberfranken facility. It also helps our customers to increase their profitability and at the same time improve their eco-balance due to significant CO2 savings,” commented Norbert Hetebrüg, executive director sales Europe of GE’s Distributed Power business.

Development

Initial planning for the integration of a CHP system at one of the two Milchwerke Oberfranken sites was already underway in 2011. In the course of the preparatory work, the heat acceptance structure of the plant was successively adapted and optimised for CHP system operation.

The “magic triangle” once again played a role. In addition to an increase in energy-supply security and a significant improvement in the life-cycle assessment, the operating efficiency was also a decisive factor in favour of the CHP system.