kWhScan

Dairy plant energy audit checklist

Audit refrigeration, pasteurization, CIP and heat recovery as one dairy energy boundary.

This field-ready checklist shows what to collect, what to calculate and where dairy energy savings are commonly double-counted. It is a pre-audit method, not a substitute for site measurement.

Minimum data set

Collect these records before estimating savings.

Production and schedule

Milk throughput, product mix, pasteurization hours, CIP cycles, cold-room occupancy and shutdown windows.

Energy and equipment

Electricity and fuel bills, refrigeration compressor data, boiler efficiency, air-compressor data and interval demand.

Temperatures and flows

Milk inlet/outlet temperatures, chilled-water or refrigerant conditions, CIP supply/return temperatures and hot-water demand.

Five audit checks

Questions the pre-audit must answer.

01Refrigeration baseline

Separate process cooling, cold storage, low-load operation, condensing conditions and defrost before assigning savings.

02Pasteurization regeneration

Confirm actual heat-regeneration effectiveness before claiming utility reduction.

03CIP heat-recovery calculation

Cap recoverable heat by simultaneous sanitary hot-water demand, usable temperature and exchanger isolation.

04Boiler and hot-water loop

Check combustion, condensate, distribution loss and storage before adding heat-recovery value.

05Overlap control

Do not add condenser heat, compressor heat and boiler savings against the same hot-water demand.

Decision boundary

Replace representative values before investment use.

A site-specific report needs plant production, utility bills, equipment data, operating trends and sanitary constraints. Public example values show the method only.