Determination of Steam Energy Factor for Wort Kettle as a Tool for Optimization of the Steam Energy

Increased focus on sustainability and energy conservation in process industries has led to a tremendous shift toward energy savings through reduced steam consumption. Evaluation of steam energy utilization by determining the steam energy factor (SEF) for energy intensive equipment in a Brewhouse such as the Wort kettle helps to demonstrate the potential for a substantial reduction in steam consumption. The high steam demand in a Brewhouse is often subjected to change due to various factors, and conventional techniques to estimate steam requirement might not be adequate to capture this versatility. The study proposes a methodology for determining the SEF for Wort kettle. A machine learning-enabled model is developed taking into account all the critical factors that primarily influence the steam energy requirement in a Brewhouse. The model was incorporated into our cloud-based platform and installed at major Breweries across India. Initial analysis done for 400HL and 440HL batches emphasized the parametric sensitivity of the model that subsequently characterized the various losses occurring in the Wort kettle and also the effect of each of the process parameters on steam energy requirement. A Wort kettle running at a sweet wort composition of less than 34% and having an SEF of 1.76 accounted for 27% evaporation loss, 8.2% condensate loss, 2.4% flash loss, 1.3% heat recovery loss and 6.4% miscellaneous loss. The model helped in establishing a relationship between the losses and all the process parameters which helped in optimizing the process control. The average SEF value was reduced from 1.76 to 1.6 with a better control strategy achieved through SEF that translated to a reduction in average steam consumption of 5371–4720 kg/brew within 7 months. Further optimization of the model overtime may help in achieving an SEF value of 1.58 with a massive reduction in energy requirement.