Arla Foods, a global dairy cooperative, is dedicated to leading in both value creation and sustainability in dairy production.
Spray drying required to create milk powder is one of the most energy-intensive processes in dairy production and a significant contributor to CO₂ emissions. At Arla’s milk powder factory in Svenstrup, Denmark, the challenge was clear: decarbonize without compromising on production or profitability.
To address this, Arla partnered with GEA to find an innovative solution. Together, they achieved the world’s-first integration of GEA’s AddCool® high-temperature heat pump system into an operational spray dryer. Unlike conventional electric heat pumps that use steam or water as a heating agent, the new heat pump at AKAFA uses CO2 for both heating and cooling. This enables efficient operation even at the high temperatures up to 120 degrees Celsius.
The solution has reduced the demand for natural gas for heating primary air by 59%, and has cut CO₂ emissions in the first year alone by 1,500 tons.
Heat pump technology
GEA AddCool® is a single stage, transcritical CO₂ heat pump solution for spray dryers, allowing dairies and other food processing industries to substantially improve process efficiency (up to ca. 50% less energy consumption) and support the decarbonisation of the food production facilities (from 50 to 80% reduced carbon footprint).
The heat pump technology uses semi-hermetic piston compressors and effectively draws waste energy from the dryer, other processes at plant level, or from the external air, as an efficient way of generating the hot air for the spray dryer. The AddCool® technology uses CO2 as refrigerant, can be used as retrofit solution and generates additional cooling capacity that can be channelled to elsewhere in the plant, if required.
The system is validated by TÜV and complies with ISO 14021 standards. It is compatible with various spray dryer models.
A video on the GEA heat pump installation at Arla Foods is to be found here.
Benefits for Arla
- Reduced demand of natural gas for heating of primary air of 670,000 Nm3 per year, equal to a 59% reduction compared to the previous operation. This results in the yearly abatement of 1,500 tons per year of CO2 emissions while operating with electricity from renewable energy sources.
- Electricity savings on the existing chiller installation, achieved by providing 430 kW of useful cooling while delivering high-temperature heat to the dryer.
- Reduced load and noise from the existing cooling tower, achieved by precooling the wastewater from the system.
- Clear overview of the current and historical performance of the system by means of GEA InsightPartner monitoring solution.
Key facts
| Dryer type | Spray dryer |
| Drying product(s) | Milk powder |
| Drying medium | Hot air |
| Operation | n.a. |
| Heat pump capacity | 8 MWth (after full implementation) |
| Refrigerant | CO2 |
| Start of operation | 2025 |
More information
This information was extracted by AIT from publicly available information. More information is provided by the provider of the technology here.