1. Can you introduce yourself please: what is your name and position/function in the company?

 Emmerich Haimer, responsible for technical project development and realization with special emphasis on energy efficiency/energy savings in the Pischelsdorf plant of AGRANA Starch GmbH. 

2. What are your products and who are your products´ buyers? To what extent would you say they care about environmental matters of production processes of your products?

Bioethanol, food grade CO2, animal feed, wheat starch, wheat gluten and wheat bran for fuel industry, paper industry and food industry. All but especially food products have to be produced in a sustainable way in order to meet customers’ acceptance. Thus the bio refinery-concept, the full utilization of feedstocks for food and energy uses, was and is the driving force behind all actions in the plant in Pischelsdorf.

3. What challenges are you currently facing in terms of energy?

According to Austrian legislation, namely Energieeffizienzgesetz, energy consumption in the industry sector has to be monitored thoroughly and reduced significantly. We expect that the respective aims will get higher in the future and thus the efficient utilization of energy is a major task in all planning and optimization actions of AGRANA.

4. What challenges are you currently facing in terms of energy-efficiency technology?

In principle, many efficiency measures have already been taken and thus access to new technology is of major importance. The lack of experience in this new technology in the food and feed industry is in many cases an obstacle for further implementation of such systems.

5. What is the motivation for installing Dryficiency industrial heat pumps in your plant?

The already mentioned obstacle of missing experience both on the industry and the heat pump  manufacturing side limits the use of heat pump technology in industry. On the other side this technology shows potential to reach energy-savings impossible to be reached by other technologies. Thus, the DryFiciency project is considered to help gain more experience to even more improve the production processes in terms of sustainability and energy efficiency.