The APK group (AgroPromKomplektatsiya) is one of the leading agricultural enterprises in the swine, beef and milk market. The commissioning of its newest meat processing plant called KMPZ (English: Kursk meat-processing plant) in spring 2016 increased the capacity of APK to process 5,000 cattle daily, one of the highest meat processing capacities worldwide.
The “state of the art” facility is operated in closed cycles that reduce residue production to a minimum, improving resource efficiency and keeping pace with modern sustainability standards.
Permanent energy supply
To grant a permanent energy supply and quality, ETW developed a customized CHP solution able to deliver the demanded electricity, heat and steam, independently from the grid. Yet this was not the first time ETW supported the APK group in a clean independent energy concept. Already in 2012 ETW could implement a similar system thus reducing the energy expenditures by 40%.
The new one is a composition of three CHPs with 2 MWel capacity, producing a total of 6 MWel power and 3,021 MWth power, fueled by natural gas and expanded by three steam boilers. Those are hybrid steam boilers that run on both, exhaust heat and natural gas, producing up to 14.7 tons of additional process steam.
To overcome the very unstable grid supply, ETW designed the energy system to be operated parallel to the grid and in island mode.
In case of a grid failure, the CHPs automatically switch to island mode without shutting down the APK meat production. Once the grid is back in stable conditions, the CHPs can be re-synchronized automatically due to a customized automation system developed by ETW. The whole plant was especially designed to attend the energy, heat and steam demands from the APK group. This customized configuration is unique in Russia and abroad.
