Case study: Nutreco's most energy-efficient fish feed plant
Nutreco's most energy-efficient fish feed plant, Skretting Stokmarknes, produces extruded fish feed for salmon and trout.
This great performance is the result of years of continuous improvement in processes and operations – taking small steps that added up to major progress over time. The plant's energy- reduction journey started in 2009 (with 2008 as the reference year). Since then, the Stokmarknes team has performed numerous, mainly low-cost, improvements that led to a 19% reduction in energy needed to produce a ton of saleable feed.
In recent years, these efforts have been aligned with Nutreco's overall Operational Excellence program. Considering today's high energy prices, this work has been appreciated more than ever.
The key technical components of Stokmarknes’ success are the plant's high overall efficiency; long production runs; low base load (rate of energy consumption when the factory is not producing); electric boiler, which uses a hybrid heat pump that recovers heat from the dryers’ exhaust air; and many other small in-house solutions for energy recovery. In addition to its state-of-the-art equipment, the expertise of the local team and their passion for continuous improvement has been critical for the plant's overall success.
