Alliance Group energy manager Brett Eades said the three heat pumps were projected to deliver an annual carbon emissions reduction of more than 6400 tonnes, the equivalent of taking 3250 cars off the road every year.
The system included a first for New Zealand innovation, enabling the plant to use heat extracted from the Mataura River to further improve efficiency.
Alliance was committed to sustainability and decarbonisation, Mr Eades said.
"This heat pump system alone will eliminate around 60% of the site’s carbon emissions.
"Alongside the new heat pumps, we are making significant upgrades to improve heat plant efficiency, including reconfiguration of the plant’s hot-water system.
"Previously, the site’s refrigeration and heat systems operated independently. We’ve now integrated them, a complex engineering challenge that enables us to recover waste heat from the refrigeration system as well as pulling heat from the river."
The Mataura upgrade followed the successful installation of similar high-temperature heat pumps at Alliance’s Nelson, Lorneville and Pukeuri plants.
"While we used the same heat pump technology at Mataura as we did at Pukeuri, the system integration was very different.
"Thanks to learnings from previous installations, this commissioning went very smoothly with minimal teething issues," Mr Eades said.
The second phase of the project was now under way, involving the design of a smaller, energy-efficient boiler system powered by electricity or biomass.
Once this was completed and the plant’s existing coal-fired boiler was decommissioned, the combined system was expected to cut emissions by a total of 14,460 tonnes a year.
The $6.2 million Mataura project included $750,000 in co-funding from the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry fund. — Allied Media
