The meat industry plays a vital role in the Spanish economy and is the largest subsector of the nation’s food and beverage industry. However, this important sector has a problem — the by-products not intended for human consumption. With regulations limiting how these by-products can be used, industrial electrical assemblers, TERBEL, turned to global drive and motor manufacturer WEG to realise a solution.
The meat industry is responsible for 22.2 per cent of the food industry’s total national turnover, according to a 2021 report by the Ministerio de Agricultura, Pesca y Alimentación (Spanish ministry of agriculture, fisheries and food). Accounting for such a large proportion of the Spanish food industry, it is important for policies surrounding what to do with waste align with the European Union’s (EU) Farm to Fork Strategy for an environmentally friendly, healthy and secure food system.
Changing legislation
In the EU, animal by-products are split into three categories, each of which has its own waste management procedure and permitted uses. Traditionally, animal by-products were reused by farmers and fed to livestock. However, since 2009, EU Regulation (EC) No. 1069/2009, which establishes health rules regarding animal by-products and derived products not intended for human consumption, repealed the previous 2002 legislation and prohibited the feeding of category one by-products to animals.
With previous practices now prohibited, farms across the country were faced with the challenge — what to do with these by-products? In the interests of public health, food safety and the environment, managing their secure disposal in accordance with legislation is essential. This is exactly the problem that animal by-product treatment plant for Galicia and surrounding autonomous communities, Gesuga, tackles.
Efficient waste management
Processing between 250,000 and 300,000 kilograms of by-products each day, Gesuga’s facility converts these by-products into organic fertilisers, biodiesel and meal and bone meal (MBM), helping to reduce the meat industry’s overall waste.
Wanting to increase their sustainability further, in 2020, Gesuga initiated an innovative combustion and gasification plant, co-financed by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and the Galician government, Xunta de Galicia. The plant was developed to recover energy in the form of substitute natural gas (SNG) from category one animal by-products, MBM, to power their main operations with less reliance on fossil fuels.
To design this innovative gasification and combustion plant, Gesuga turned to TERBEL, industrial electrical assembler dedicated to the maintenance and assembly of electrical installations including industrial process control. TERBEL was tasked with carrying out the engineering, integration and installation of a distributed control system (DCS), connected using a Profibus communication network. To create this system, TERBEL turned to long-term trusted supplier WEG to supply essential variable speed drives.
Efficient products
Motors play an essential role in many of the processes taking place at the gasification and combustion plant, including the transportation of MBM, ventilation for the processes of gasification and combustion and the dosing of the different materials and elements required.
“As the gasification and combustion plant was designed to produce energy to power the main operations at Gesuga, guaranteeing continuous energy generation was essential,” explained Luis Alberto Terroba Iñiguez, technical industrial engineer at TERBEL. “TERBEL has a long history of working with and installing WEG products. For the project at Gesuga, we needed reliable components to guarantee the entire facility’s continuous operation, and we knew we could trust the proven robustness and efficiency that WEG offers.”
To control these motors, TERBEL opted for 16 variable speed drives from WEG’s CFW11 and CFW700 lines, to continuously manage power ranging from 0.37 kilowatts (kW) to 200 kW. All of WEG’s products are designed with flexibility and simplicity in mind, which made installation efficient for TERBEL.
“The CFW11 and CFW700 are both developed with WEG’s plug-and-play philosophy in mind,” explained Miguel Ángel Gonzalo, sales engineer at WEG Iberia. “This means that any accessories that are plugged in are automatically recognised by the variable speed drive, removing the need for extra configuration and simplifying both installation and operation.”
Efficient communication
All WEG’s products are designed with efficiency at the forefront. However, installation was carried out even more efficiently thanks to WEG Iberia’s technical team, based in Madrid, who were on hand to assist TERBEL’s engineers from the moment the order was placed.
“The technical team at WEG Iberia were available via telephone at any point to answer any small queries we had regarding the variable speed drives supplied,” expressed Terroba. “Although we are familiar with WEG’s products, we did receive guidance on how to best optimise the equipment’s performance. The technical team responded to all of our queries quickly and efficiently, helping to keep the project running smoothly.”
Efficient operations
Through efficient design, project management and communication, WEG’s variable speed drives were successfully integrated into the DCS at Gesuga’s gasification and combustion plant.
“WEG’s variable speed drives enabled a reduction in the electrical energy consumption of the plant’s motors, precise control of the pressure, flow and temperature processes contributing to entirely energy-efficient operations,” explained Gonzalo.
Recovering energy from MBM to power Gesuga’s animal by-product treatment operations has resulted in a considerable reduction in fossil fuel use, carbon dioxide emissions and cost.
“Thanks to the success of the project, Gesuga has estimated a 60 per cent reduction in its reliance on natural gas compared to previously, cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 6,000 tonnes each year,” explained Terroba. “Having completed the project in the second half of 2020, the gasification and combustion plant has now been continuously operating since January 2021, cutting the entire facility’s operational costs and allowing it to offer more sustainable services.
“We are completely satisfied with the energy savings, product quality and technical services provided by WEG,” added Terroba. “Without a doubt, we will continue to work with WEG in the future on other projects we complete”.
If you’re looking to increase the efficiency of your industrial process, contact WEG IBERIA for quality electrical components, expert product knowledge and unrivalled customer service via the website: www.weg.net/institutional/ES/es/contact/contact-us. For further information about Terbel’s services, visit www.terbel.es/.