Britvic chooses ammonia heat pumps
21st August 2023
GERMANY: GEA is to supply Britvic, one of the UK’s leading soft drinks manufacturers, with an ammonia heat pump heat recovery system at its facility in Beckton, east London.
The installation of two RedGenium industrial ammonia heat pumps and a large thermal storage tank this summer is predicted to cut the factory’s carbon emissions by an estimated 1,200 tons annually.
Britvic’s Beckton site produces 2,000 drinks every minute, including many of the UK’s most popular beverages such as Robinsons, Tango and Pepsi MAX.
The existing refrigeration plant room at Britvic houses three GEA BluAstrum chillers. Their waste heat will also feed the new heat pumps
The heat pumps will replace much of Britvic’s process heating requirement which is currently supplied from natural gas steam boilers. The new heat recovery system, designed and supplied by GEA, will reuse low temperature waste heat from the existing production system to heat hot water to 92°C for distribution throughout the plant.
Britvic says this will decarbonise 50% of the site’s heat demand by using less gas in the traditional steam boilers, shifting the heat source away from fossil fuels. A valved connection is provided for up to 750kW of heat which will be recovered in the future from other sources.
