Australian family-owned company Hardwich Processors has been awarded $838,000 in funding from ARENA to install a 1 MW (thermal) demonstration-scale heat pump and upgrade the electrical supply system at its meat processing plant in Kyneton, Victoria.
In 2019, Hardwick was selected to carry out a feasibility study into using renewable energy to provide process heat, as part of a project led by the Australian Alliance for Energy Productivity (A2EP) and funded by ARENA.
The findings, which indicated that it would be more effective to continuously operate a smaller, less expensive heat pump while storing hot water in already-existing thermal storage tanks, led to ARENA funding the current demonstration-scale project.
ARENA said the heat pump upgrade will enable the company to produce enough hot water to improve shelf life and access further export market growth, in addition to reducing the site’s reliance on natural gas by over 75%.
According to the agency, the project will also benefit from Hardwick Processors’ previous commitments to reducing emissions by utilising existing on-site renewable energy supply infrastructure of 2.5 MW solar PV and a 2 MWh battery storage system.
“Around half of the total energy used by Australian industry is due to industrial process heat, which typically uses natural gas,” ARENA said in a statement.
“Reducing the reliance on natural gas for process heat represents a significant opportunity to decarbonise Australian industry and reduce exposure to volatile gas prices.”
In addition to installing a heat pump, Hardwick will also upgrade their electrical supply system to become a high-voltage customer, taking any excess electricity required from the Powercor network.
This upgrade will shed light on the electrical supply infrastructure requirements associated with fully electrifying process heat for industries.
ARENA CEO Darren Miller said the demonstration project would help to reduce “barriers to uptake for the industry”.
“The project offers us the opportunity to trial how using heat pumps can reduce reliance on natural gas and prove to the industry that this is technically and economically feasible and a viable solution to dramatically reduce emissions at their facilities,” Mr Miller stated.
“Hardwick Processors is at the forefront of helping to reduce emissions in the meat processing industry. Having already installed on-site solar PV and battery, it is now able to demonstrate how the hot water demand of industrial processing can be managed with the addition of heat pumps and use of thermal energy,
“This is a solution that we could see being replicated across other businesses in the industry.”
