How to decarbonize dairy

You're a dairy, not an energy company 

It can feel odd to talk about milk and molten salt in the same breath. You make dairy products, you're not an energy utility.

But electrification and decarbonization are coming to food and beverage whether the sector likes it or not. The EU's legally binding target is to cut emissions by at least 55% by 2030, and dairy, one of the most heat-intensive corners of food processing, sits squarely in the crosshairs.

– This all boils down to one thing: do you have the expertise in-house? Elena asks.

Most dairies, she says, understand their own heat demand intimately. What's harder is reading the energy market itself,  power price volatility, grid connection realities, storage economics, funding mechanisms.

– That's the grey zone, Elena says. – The ultimate question is about expertise and resources: do I have enough technical, commercial and energy-market knowledge in-house to judge what it actually takes to electrify our site? For most dairies, that's exactly where the project or energy manager gets stuck,  somewhere between a rough sense of the transition and knowing how to act on it.

Where the gas is actually hiding. 

Two dairy processes line up almost perfectly with the steam Heatcube is built to deliver, and they happen to be among the most energy-hungry, most continuous loads on any dairy site:

• Evaporation and concentration: the heart of milk powder and dairy ingredients. Multiple-effect evaporators concentrate milk before drying, running continuously on steam at ~120–130 °C. Milk powder is by far the most heat-intensive dairy product, about 2,800 kWh of process heat per tonne, roughly three times a tonne of cheese,  and evaporation accounts for ~45% of that (around 1,260 kWh per tonne of powder). It's the single largest steam load in dairy, and the strongest decarbonization target on any powder or ingredients site.

• UHT and sterilization: steam at ~135–150 °C used to flash-heat milk, cream and long-life dairy drinks, running at high hours across the production calendar. A steady, steam-intensive load that never really lets up.

Both are steam-driven, both run around the clock, and both sit squarely in the medium-temperature band Heatcube serves. That's what makes them the natural first connection points for a thermal battery, not a stretch, but a direct match of supply to demand.

To put the scale in perspective: a mid-sized plant producing 30,000 tonnes of milk powder a year burns roughly 38 GWh of heat on evaporation alone, about 8,500 tonnes of CO₂ a year if that heat comes from gas. That's one process step, at one plant.

A word on drying, the other big energy user on a powder site (~51% of its energy). How the drying heat is produced decides the fit:

• Spray drying, the common route, atomises concentrated milk into a hot-air stream (150–250 °C inlet, 70–90 °C outlet). That air is usually heated by burning gas, oil or biomass, or by steam-heated air. Because it's a high-temperature air load, it sits apart from the core steam pitch,  a phase-two question for site engineering, where steam-heated air can cover part of the range.

• Roller drying, less common today, spreads concentrate as a thin film on steam-heated drums (120–170 °C) and scrapes off the dried powder. That's a genuine steam load, and a direct Heatcube fit where it's still used.

Here's why the match is clean. Central steam is always generated one tier above the highest process requirement, then distributed and stepped down to each process — standard practice in every dairy today. So Heatcube produces steam in its own 150–300 °C window, feeds it into the site's steam header, and serves evaporation and UHT with room to spare.

You're not sizing it to one process; you're swapping the central fossil steam boiler for a clean one.

The rest of the plant comes along for the ride. Pasteurization (~72–85 °C), CIP and hot-water loads are served by the same steam system, just stepped down further, while cheese and whey concentration add more steam demand in the same band.

Act now, or wait and hope: the window is closing

There's a second thing making this urgent: time.

The iceberg of the green transition is on the horizon, and the industry is sailing straight at it. Is there still time to steer around? Put simply, does dairy have to move off fossil heat now, or can it wait and see?

– In the sustainability report it all looks great, nice fonts and colours, Elena says. – But who's making sure there's action behind the words? That's where it falls short. And it takes quite a bit to know what you don't know.

She is blunt about waiting.

– Delaying the inevitable rarely pays off, and the transition is already well under way. Industrial process heat is responsible for roughly a fifth of Europe's CO₂ emissions, and more than 80% of it still comes from burning fossil fuels. McKinsey expects thermal-storage capacity in Europe to grow from under 0.5 GWh today to more than 200 gigawatt-hours by 2035, a build-out worth around €16 billion. Now the bottleneck: the suppliers who can actually deliver industrial-scale thermal storage today are still few, and a build-out that size in a decade is a queue.

– So the real question is: will there be a solution left for you, when you're finally done waiting?

And this isn't theory. In Denmark, Arla's AKAFA milk-powder plant in Svenstrup electrified the heating of its spray-dryer air, cutting natural gas use for that step by 59% and abating around 1,500 tonnes of CO₂ in the first year. An energy audit of the same site pointed to roughly 8,000 tonnes a year of potential. Spray drying was long considered one of the hardest dairy processes to electrify; it's now being done on an operating line. The direction of travel is set.

Make sure management is actually committed

Let's be honest: there's a world of difference between an ESG pledge in an annual report and rewiring how a dairy makes its heat.

– There's an ideological side, everyone wants to help on climate, Elena says. – But this is also hard economics. As a CFO or CEO, can you justify treading water for five years while carbon costs climb and gas stays volatile? When you're measured on margins and shareholder value, can you justify waiting?

– Can dairy afford to wait?

– No. And it shouldn't. Decarbonizing your production is a savvy, risk-averse business move. Run the exercise — actually calculate the financial and reputational cost of waiting. Then remember: money talks. The endgame is speaking the language management understands. Skip the fluff. What they need is a no-nonsense blueprint they can trust.

A 4-step recipe to decarbonize your dairy

Step 1: Find out if emission cuts are on track

Review your ESG reports and compare current emissions against targets. Where are the shortfalls?

• Do you have the competence in-house to close them, or do you need external help or a dedicated energy manager?

• Gauge management's real commitment, is decarbonization backed with time and budget, or is it words on paper? Check your

• KPIs: most managers are still measured purely on fiscal metrics, not green ones.

• Run the what if we wait? exercise, a proper risk assessment of acting now versus deferring (rising CO₂ costs, penalties, long lead times, investor and customer impact).

Step 2: Test first-hand technical assumptions

In simple terms: will new energy equipment physically fit, and are you allowed to install it?

• Determine your heat demand (map evaporation, drying, UHT, pasteurization, CIP loads and temperatures).

• Conduct an energy audit to find inefficiencies before you invest.

• Compare solutions, electric boilers, thermal batteries, heat pumps, hot-water systems, and check grid capacity, on-site renewables.

• Check permits and space for new installations.

Step 3: Reinforce the business case with an engineering and commercial study

Validate or disprove your assumptions.

• Engineering study: order one on technical feasibility for your specific site. 
  

• Build a financial projection (cost savings, ROI, bottom-line impact over time).

• Explore funding, grants and subsidies can cover a meaningful share of upfront cost.

Step 4: Decarbonize — it's now or later

The management decision gate. Lay out the consequences of each choice across

• Short, mid and long term: the cost of waiting vs. acting.

• Your position in the market. 

• Projected gas prices, and CO₂ taxes that are not going down.

• Consider Heat-as-a-Service (HaaS) — meeting green goals by outsourcing heat production, without the large upfront capital or the operational burden.

Ready to make your decarbonization goals a reality?

Decarbonizing dairy is no longer an option, it's a financial and reputational necessity. The steps are clear. Only you can decide when to begin.

Connect with Elena Davydova, Business Development Manager at Kyoto Group, to turn your decarbonization ambitions into concrete action.