At its dairy facility in Pronsfeld, Germany, Arla has installed two heat pumps as part of its broader goal to drastically reduce CO₂ emissions by 2030.

Arla is pursuing an ambitious sustainability and climate agenda aimed at cutting emissions across its entire value chain. This includes making dairy production at its facilities significantly more climate friendly. The cooperative aims to reduce CO₂e emissions by 63 percent across all European sites by 2030, compared to the baseline year of 2015.

At its Pronsfeld production site, Arla has now reached another important milestone: the commissioning of a new system featuring two high-capacity electric heat pumps. These pumps will replace a natural gas boiler previously used to heat milk, according to a press release on Arla.de.

Most of the energy powering the two heat pumps comes from previously unused waste heat generated by a large central cooling system. This allows for sustainable reuse of energy that had gone to waste in the past. Thanks to this greener heating method, CO₂e emissions at the site can now be reduced by approximately 5,000 tons annually compared to the former gas-based system. Arla has invested around €14 million in the Pronsfeld plant to realize this project.

• With our heat pump project, we are once again demonstrating how the energy transition toward more climate-friendly production can be successfully implemented in large industrial operations. Together with our farmers, we are working intensively to make dairy production more sustainable—from farm to fridge. By the end of last year, we had already achieved over one-third of our emission reduction target at the Pronsfeld site. The new heat pumps add another major area of savings, so we are clearly on the right track, said Stephan Goetz, Plant Director at Arla’s Pronsfeld facility.

You can read the full press release HERE (in German).

Photo: Arla