Arla switches from fossil gas to biomass-fired district heat

In September 2023, farmer-owned Arla Foods Falkenberg Dairy and municipal energy utility Falkenberg Energi AB held a joint groundbreaking ceremony marking the start of the construction of a woodchip-fired heat plant to replace Arla’s natural gas-fired steam boiler system.

Now operational, the new bioheat plant means that the dairy can reduce its energy-related carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions by approximately 3,000 tonnes per year.

This is an important milestone for us. The investment benefits both the environment and our operations. We are reducing our climate emissions enormously and at the same time we can use energy more efficiently, said Christian Svensson, dairy manager at Arla Falkenberg.

The final test runs were carried out in mid-December 2024, and since then the facility has been operated completely without fossil energy sources.

Aligned with sustainability strategy

The investment is part of the implementation of Arla’s sustainability strategy. Per the Paris Agreement, the company will reduce its emissions by 63 percent by 2030, compared to 2015, and contribute to limiting global warming to a maximum of 1.5 degrees.

Arla Foods Falkenberg is the sixth of Arla’s eleven dairies in Sweden to switch to fossil-free operation.

Transforming raw milk into high-quality dairy products is an energy-consuming process. Therefore, efficiency improvements and the transition to fossil-free energy sources at our dairies are high on the sustainability agenda. Falkenberg inspires and shows what is possible through good cooperation, said Victoria Olsson, Sustainability Manager at Arla Sweden.

The project has been partly financed with grants from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and the European Union within the framework of the Climate Leap.

Collaborative private-public partnership

A collaboration with Falkenberg Energi which owns and operates the Ågård bioheat plant, it is built adjacent to the cottage cheese production facility.

It is a district heating plant from which  Falkenberg Energi supplies Arla Foods Falkenberg with both process heat and space heating as well as space heating to other consumers on a newly extended heat network.

In connection with the transition to fossil-free operation, the dairy is also becoming more energy efficient.

Among other things, the facility’s steam boilers have been replaced with a hot water-based system, which reduces heat leakage in the distribution system by approximately 10 percent.

In total, Arla Foods Falkenberg expects to decrease its thermal energy consumption in cottage cheese production by just over 3 GWh annually.

Combined heat and power (CHP) ready

Falkenberg Energi produces approximately 70 GWh of district heat annually. The new Ågård bioheat plant is built for fully automated, unmanned operation.

Sourced locally, the woodchips are delivered by truck, and a feature is that the fuel receiving and storage bunkers are enclosed keeping noise and dust to a minimum.

According to plant and technology supplier AKJ Energiteknik AB, the bioheat plant is designed for high operational availability and environmental performance and is being prepared for electricity generation with an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) turbine and flue gas condensation.

The combustion equipment is primarily adapted for burning local forest fuels such as logging residues and equipped with AKJ’s advanced combustion and control systems combined with Selective Non-Catalytic Reduction (SNCR) NOx reduction equipment.