DISTRIBUTED ENERGY OFFERS A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN FOOD DISTRIBUTION

One of Turkey’s largest chicken meat producers covers a large part of its energy requirements with combined heat and power plants for generating electricity and heat.

Iltekno, MWM’s distributor in Turkey, planned and supplied the plants with the right equipment.

One of Turkey’s largest chicken meat producers is the food company Beypiliç, located in the province of Bolu.

Beypiliç produces a wide range of poultry meat products at several plants in Bolu and near Ankara. Founded in 1979, the company is one of Turkey’s 100 largest industrial companies and employs almost 3,300 people.

In 2010, Beypiliç invested in a turnkey cogeneration plant with two MWM gas gensets, each with a capacity of 4.3 MWe, for its plant in Bolu.

Iltekno, Caterpillar Energy Solutions’ regional distributor, supplied and installed the CHP. With this CHP, a close partnership between Beypiliç and Iltekno developed, which has lasted more than twelve years.

Between 2010 and 2022, the co-operation was consolidated by further commissioning seven MWM gas gensets at several locations.

In Bolu, for example, the capacity of the existing CHP plant was expanded by the purchase of two MWM TCG 2032 V16 gensets. This means that nine MWM gas gensets generate electricity and heat for Beypiliç.

A pioneering company in its sector

Poultry rearing facilities, slaughterhouses, feed production, and food production - all these divisions of Beypiliç require large amounts of energy and heat.

Hamdi Tanrıkulu, a member of Beypiliç’s board of directors, explains background to the decision in favour of Iltekno’s plants: “During our evaluations conducted in early 2010, considering that distributed energy systems would be more important in Turkey, we decided to invest in gas-engined cogeneration power plants.

“Gas-engine systems have high electricity generation efficiency, high availability rates, and low maintenance costs, and they are suitable for stop-start operation, which attracted us as a much more suitable system than other distributed energy generation systems.”

This is especially true of gas engines which can reach high efficiency levels and become very advantageous financially - especially when you consider the points where the hot water obtained from the jacket water can be effectively used within the facility,”.

Alongside the order for nine MWM gas gensets, long-term complete maintenance contracts were signed for all plants.

“Iltekno’s experienced teams of technicians are located in many regions of Turkey, so we have never had any major problems with our plants, both during planned maintenance and during breakdowns in general,” says Tanrıkulu, praising Iltekno’s service.

A productive partnership for more than 12 years

Beypilic uses the CHP plants to supply its electricity to the company’s various divisions and cover almost all of the electricity requirements of the individual factories.

The thermal output of the CHP plants is mainly used to provide process steam for food production.

The electrical efficiency of the plants is 43.8 %; when heat is used, the overall efficiency is over 90 %.

Using cogeneration, Beypiliç has saved around 150,000 tons of CO2 since commissioning, compared with conventional energy supply.

This is roughly equivalent to the amount of CO2 a passenger car would emit if it circled the earth 150 times.

“We have expanded our gas engine cogeneration power plant investment, which started in 2010, over the years, and reached nine engines in total,” says Hamdi Tanrıkulu

“One of the important factors in making such big investments was our confidence in Iltekno and MWM, which has more than 150 years of experience.”

He concludes: ”Our power plant investments of more than 12 years enabled us to make financial savings and provided us with uninterrupted and clean energy, which resulted in a serious competitive advantage in our favor.” www.mwm.net