Viking Malt’s new plant up and running
The state-of-the-art new production site of Viking Malt Group in Lahti makes engineers smile and competitors frown. It ensures Viking Malt as being not only one of Europe’s biggest malt producers, but also one of the most energy efficient, far into the future.
– Managing such a project in times disrupted by a pandemic and a war requires strong and reliable partners, Viking Malts CEO Kasper Madsen, says.
The greenfield project includes an exceptional energy solution. Energy production (i.e., heat production), cooling plant and heat pump system have been integrated in a new way to simultaneously produce heat and cooling. Waste heat alone covers more than 65 per cent of the heat energy needed. In addition, barley husk by-products of the malthouse are reused as fuel in energy production.
– The most impressing part, from both sides, is that this is far from conventional. We really implemented a tailormade solution together with Viking Malt, says Adven’s Key Account Director Heikki Aarrejoki.
Viking Malt’s employee is checking the ongoing malt production and the enormous amount of malt passing by.
Viking Malt’s VP for Supply chain, Tomasz Malec, agrees and adds:
– Thanks to this we do believe we will achieve a great KPI for both costs and climate. This exceptional solution, and our additional projects together, was selected from the perspective of carbon neutrality.
Tomasz refers to a few additional solutions Adven found for even further waste heat recovery. Another 280 kilowatts will be recovered and used in the production process and heating of the buildings. Although it is a relatively small extra saving, the malt house will be in operation for decades, so every improvement counts and makes a difference in the long run. Speaking about extra energy savings, Viking Malt will also install an ammonia piping connecting the energy plant to the production plant and main hot water circulation pumps for improving energy efficiency even further.
– This is what we want from our partners: being proactive and finding ways of improving an already good solution. We work closely together to make our greenfield project a success and to keep us competitive far into the future, says Viking Malt’s project director Kimmo Hietanen.
The Lahti site has a production capacity of approximately 85,000 tonnes of malt per year and heating energy capacity of 53 GWh annually. Viking Malt Group has six plants in five countries: Lithuania, Poland, Finland, Denmark and Sweden.
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