Recently, the Amalgamated Sugar Company factory at Paul, Idaho utilized the Sugars™ program for the evaluation of waste heat recovery to reduce steam consumption during both the beet processing and juice processing campaigns.

The Mini-Cassia factory located in Paul, Idaho, processes up to 3.2 million tons of beets per season while operating for approximately 180 slicing days. Thick juice produced from the crop is processed over a period of approximately 280-300 sugar end operating days. The company elected to install the necessary equipment to reduce energy consumption to the world-class standard of 19% steam on beet from its current consumption of 23-24% steam on beet using a thorough application of waste heat recovery.

Detailed process models were constructed with Sugars™ for the beet and juice campaigns to evaluate the installation of equipment to give the best overall waste heat recovery strategy for the factory. The models also allowed a full analysis of the effects on cooling water requirements and total condensate production from the plant. Thus, a full evaluation of the impact of the aggressive waste heat recovery strategy on not only steam consumption but also on plant utilities and waste water production were possible using Sugars™. The Sugars™ modeling software, when correctly utilized for the detailed construction of process systems model, has proven to be quite capable of precise prediction of the effects of process modifications on energy consumption and process material flows.