Expert Spotlight

Meet Dr. Isabel Osterroth, Senior Director of Sustainable Engineering Solutions at GEA Heating & Refrigeration Technologies. In an exclusive interview, Isabel sits down with us to share insights into how GEA is reimagining its approach to help companies across the food, beverage and dairy sectors improve plant efficiency, reduce carbon emissions and drastically reduce energy consumption along entire process chains.

Welcome, Isabel. Please explain to our readers what GEA Sustainable Engineering Solutions is all about.

Isabel: The purpose of Sustainable Engineering Solutions is to support our customers in achieving their sustainability goals and contributing to the decarbonization of the process industry. The food and beverage industry, among others, has a lot of potential for decarbonizing heat streams, as a lot of waste heat is not utilized today. For instance, in a brewery, excess heat is removed from the process by glycol cooling, e.g., of the fermentation vessels. The heat is released via the evaporative condenser of the cooling plant to the environment with a low temperature (e.g., 35°C / 95°F). This waste heat stream alone could equal to approx. 50% of the total thermal energy demand of the same production site — just at the wrong temperature.

GEA’s holistic engineering solutions is using GEA’s broad portfolio and expert knowledge in processes, heating and cooling to come up with a technical solution to minimize, reuse and recover as much energy as possible. Staying  with the brewery example, our heat pumps can use this waste heat from the refrigeration system and provide a temperature level, e.g., 95°C / 203°F . While our heating and refrigeration experts know how to make the waste heat stream available and can design a suitable heat pump and storage system, our in-house process experts know where to use the energy in the process best and how to modify and retrofit an existing installation, e.g., by adding additional heating surfaces to a mash tun.

Tell us a bit about your background and what sparked your interest in this type of work?

Isabel: I grew up in a family that ran a business and my sisters and I spent a lot of time playing in the production facilities. Even as a child I had a favourite machine, a large tumbler sieve that looked like a UFO, so my interest in technology was awakened very early on. I studied food engineering and optimized the energy flows in a dairy as part of my thesis (where I had my first contact with GEA — a milk separator) and worked in research for sustainable solutions for a few more years before joining GEA in 2018. Since then, my professional path has been linked to application development and sustainability.

The opportunities we have as an engineering company to make a meaningful contribution to the much-needed transformation of the industry towards a more sustainable heat supply is what drives me, as well as the passion and expertise of the people, especially in my team, who believe in contributing to this change and the constant need to adapt to new technologies, processes and views.

When should customers involve GEA in their project timeline?

Isabel: For holistic solution thinking, we recommend involving us at the earliest-possible stage. With GEA's expertise not only in heating and cooling technology, but also in process technology, we can support the industry from the initial thought of sustainability through to a technically feasible solution.

In the past, we have mostly seen separate tender packages for heating, cooling and process. This often leads to a mismatch between energy demand and energy supply and is a missed opportunity to a fully integrated solution that reuses waste heat and minimises primary energy demand and the high cost of subsequent retrofitting or optimization.

An example: In many processes, steam at a temperature of, e.g., 175°C / 347°F has traditionally been used to heat processes, while most users require much lower temperatures. The main reason for this has traditionally been to limit the diameter of steam pipes and reduce the heating surfaces of heat exchangers - and today it is a challenge to utilize recovered energy from waste heat streams. Today's drive for a more sustainable and cost-efficient energy supply requires a move away from these traditional solutions towards a more demand-driven heat supply network, where only the energy that is needed is provided and all potential for recovery and reuse is considered — and this requires a holistic view of processes, utilities and other project requirements.

Involving GEA as early as possible in the planning process can therefore bring considerable benefits in terms of efficiency, correct dimensioning of the supply facilities, waste heat utilization and a future-proof solution.

What steps does GEA take in applying holistic approaches to projects?

Isabel: Last year, GEA launched Add Better Consulting — a new, growing sustainability consulting service at GEA that brings together teams of experts from different divisions (currently, mainly heating and cooling technology and process experts from the food and beverage industry). While most customers in the food and beverage industry have ambitious decarbonization targets, many struggle to develop an operational implementation plan on how to achieve them. Our TÜV-validated consultancy process applies relevant international standards and uses GEA's unique combination of in-house expertise to deliver not only a detailed analysis of the factory, but also a concept for a feasible technical decarbonization solution and a reliable assessment of the financial viability of the project. In a second step, we use our engineering and project expertise to realize these holistic concepts, which we then call NEXUS projects worldwide. And, of course, we also offer service and digital tools after commissioning to ensure long-term sustainable operation.

To summarize, our mission is to be a partner for the industry — from the first thought of sustainability to the successful implementation and sustainable operation of the plant.

There’s quite a buzz about industrial heat pumps. What’s driving that interest and are heat pumps an ingredient in GEA heating and cooling solutions?

Isabel: Fossil fuels currently dominate the heat supply in industrial processes, buildings and heating networks. To achieve the climate targets, it is crucial to switch the heat supply to climate-neutral solutions. Heat pumps are now regarded as a key technology for the climate-neutral operation of heating networks and the provision of industrial process heat up to 200°C / 392°F. Heat pumps can open up considerable potential in the areas of geothermal energy, water and the utilization of industrial waste heat. GEA's customers often generate large quantities of industrial waste heat at low temperatures, which can be converted very efficiently into usable process heat using today's heat pump technology. It is therefore an important component of our holistic concepts.

Can you share a project example and the outcome?

Isabel: HEINEKEN is one of our recent success stories. GEA will supply a low-carbon heat network for their brewery in Manchester, UK. The brewery produces about 400 million liters of Heineken®, Birra Moretti and Foster’s beer per year. The decarbonization journey starts with the installation of heat pumps and a heat pump network capturing and reusing heat to brew and package beer.

GEA will design, supply and install the low carbon heat network to the existing plant and will also modify the legacy process equipment. Currently, steam is produced in large steam boilers powered by natural gas. With the new system, HEINEKEN UK will use a low-temperature (90°C / 194°FC) hot-water network – driven by GEA heat pumps — thus replacing the steam boilers with environmentally friendly heat pumps powered by electricity. GEA’s heat pump solution utilizes the natural refrigerant ammonia with zero ozone depletion potential (ODP) and zero global warming potential (GWP). Distribution and recovery pipe work make up the foundation of the network, which will absorb the heat from multiple processes.

GEA’s high level of expertise in brewing and ability to offer a complete sustainable energy solution in-house was very appealing to HEINEKEN. Once completed, HEINEKEN UK estimates that the installation will result in a 45% decrease in gas use, leading to a reduction of carbon emissions.

Automation and digitalization are hot topics these days. How do these fit into GEA’s sustainable engineering approach now and in the future?

Isabel: Automation and digitalization are key to sustainable solutions, especially during the use phase of our solutions. A good example is the new GEA OptiPartner Blu-Red Energy tool, which uses advanced AI and machine learning algorithms to analyze machine and weather data and enable seamless, data-driven energy optimization across compressors, heat pumps, chillers and entire plants. In the future, I expect all machines within these sustainable solutions to be connected to the cloud to benefit from the latest technology and application developments.

Which industrial applications are most in focus for your team?

Isabel: Today we mainly focus on the food and beverage industry. This includes breweries, soft drink producers, distilleries, dairies and different types of food factories. But we keep adding applications like paper mills and hospitals, wherever our technologies add value.

How can customers determine if they are good candidates to engage with the GEA Sustainable Energy Solutions team?

Isabel: The biggest potentials are in production facilities where you have heating and cooling demand at the same time, this is why the food and beverage industry is so much in our focus. But the easiest way to find out is to  give us a call or write an email. We will help to understand the potentials and share our experiences.

Fast forward 10 years. How do you see GEA’s sustainable engineering solutions evolving in the years ahead?

Isabel: We expect a steep growth curve for sustainable technologies over the next 10 years and will challenge not only our organization, but also our customers with innovations, rethinking processes and technologies and implementing them. In my view, sustainable engineering solutions will be the new normal in 10 years' time — every factory we build will see this as good engineering practice.

Thank you, Isabel. It’s clear that your role truly embodies GEA’s purpose – engineering for a better world. Continued success to you and the GEA team in moving customers forward toward a sustainable future.