Integration of a heat pump into the heat supply system of a cheese production plant

The food processing industry in Ukraine is widely developed and continues to develop. The majority of the enterprises of the food processing industry use the technological process with refrigerating cycles. Basically it uses ammonia refrigeration units. In existing ammonia refrigeration units waste energy from ammonia overheat after compression is not used. This waste energy can be used for heating of other technological streams. It can be achieved by detailed inspection of the technological streams system and further heat integration of the ammonia unit into a heating system of the enterprise. In this study an inspection of a cheese production plant has been conducted and the opportunity to heat integration of an existing ammonia refrigeration unit into technological process is considered. At present energy from ammonia superheating and condensation is not used and is expelled into the atmosphere through the cooling tower. There are two options for use of this heat: first without additional compression of ammonia and second with additional compression of ammonia stream. Both cases are considered. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.