Green Dairy Plant: Process Simulation and Economic Analysis of Biogas Use in Milk Drying

Abstract

A project of a new milk drying unit processing 4800 kg/h of fresh milk into milk powder with expected steam consumption of 1000 kg/h (equivalent to ca. 2.6 GJ/h) was assessed. In this paper, investment profitability of this project was analyzed combining mathematical modeling, market analysis, and parametric sensitivity study. Aspen Plus was used as the simulation environment to determine values of key process variables—major streams, mass flows, and energy consumption. Co-digestion of cattle manure in an adjacent biogas plant was considered to provide biogas to partially or completely substitute natural gas as an energy source. As biogas composition from potential co-digestion was unknown, variable methane content from 45 to 60 mol.% was considered. In the next step, thorough economic analysis was conducted. Diverse effects of biogas addition depending on market prices, biogas treatment costs, and biogas methane content were simulated and evaluated. In a market situation closest to reality, biogas mixing to boiler fuel decreased simple payback period from 11.2 years to 5.1 years. However, if biogas treatment costs were high (final biogas price equal to or above 0.175 EUR/m3), the simple payback period was increased two- to sixfold, making the analyzed project practically unfeasible.