Milk processor Synlait takes coal out of dairy with its new electric and gas boilers

Saturday, 9 March 2019

Dairy consumers have reason to feel slightly less guilty as milk processor Synlait reduces its carbon footprint by commissioning its new gas and electricity boilers rather than using coal.

John Penno, Synlait's former chief executive, promised last year that the company would never commission another coal fired boiler, and was also looking into co-firing boilers with biomass.

In the next few days, the company will boast about commissioning its first electrode boiler for its Dunsandel plant in Canterbury.

And the following month Synlait will take take delivery of a natural gas fired steam boiler at Pokeno in Waikato where it can tap into a piped natural gas supply.

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* New expertise at Lyttelton Engineering after ownership changes

The Pokeno 25MW natural gas project was a boon for Canterbury small to medium business, Lyttelton Engineering.

General manager Richard York said it was the largest boiler the company had ever made and 16 of the 87 staff were apprentices who had all had a chance to work on it.

York said the completed 43 tonne boiler will be transported in April on the Interislander ferry and then by truck to Pokeno, where his staff would install it.

For the Dunsandel plant, Synlait harnessed the expertise of boiler maker Energy Plant Solutions of Palmerston North, and the Energy Efficiency Conservation Authority.

A Synlait spokeswoman said the ultimate plan was to entirely remove coal from three other boilers in Canterbury, but it depended on the electricity supply capacity from the Orion lines network.

'To power our first 6 megawatt electrode boiler, Orion had to deliver infrastructure upgrades to the Dunsandel network.

'We're in discussions with several groups to explore the timeframes and investments to run our factory as close as we can get to 100 per cent renewable electricity.

'Until we're able to figure that out we will have to continue to burn coal, albeit at a much lesser volume,' she said.

The electrode boiler had the carbon equivalent saving compared with coal of reducing 13,714 tonnes of CO2 release a year, halving greenhouse gases from this source.

The improved boilers were only part of Synlait's efforts which included targets to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, water use, and nitrogen leaching on the farms that supply it with milk.

This involved graded certifications where farmers were rewarded with higher prices for their milk for higher environmental performance.

An additional incentive was a higher price for dairy farmers producing milk without palm kernel, blamed for destruction of natural forests overseas.

Synlait was aiming to become a Certified B Corporation according to Hamish Reid, director of sustainability and brand, who was appointed last year.

The certification was for meeting standards of environmental and social performance, accountability and transparency.

There were 16 Certified B Corporations in New Zealand, and most were small to medium enterprises, with Synlait due to become the first large scale, NZX-listed business to join, Reid said.

The biggest coal burning dairy producer is Fonterra at 410,000 tonnes of coal a year at 30 manufacturing plants, with additional processing plants.

Synlait has two manufacturing plants and two processing plants where products are blended and packaged.