-April 15,2019-
Tulare’s Land O Lakes, Saputo Cheese and Visalia-based California Dairies Inc will all be upgrading their processing plants to use less fossil fuel to make their products. All are grantees in a recent round of application competition at the California Energy Commission(CEC) designed to demonstrate innovative new technologies that are sustainable.
In February the CEC announced that food makers, LOL and CDI will get funds to operate a high-temperature solar thermal energy system at their dairy processing facilities, receiving around $3 million each.Milk processors require very high temps to do everything from bottle sterilization,UHT treatment ,multiple stage evaporation and spray drying.
Then this March Tulare’s big Saputo Cheese plant on Paige Ave was awarded $5.4 million to install a a similar solar thermal system that will replace natural gas fired boilers to make stem. Architect Loren K. Aiton says the heated liquid warmed by the sun in day time will be piped and stored a night time allowing the steam making process to go on 24-hours a day.
This week Saputo filed plans with the City of Tulare to build the new system named Concentrated Solar Thermal for Sustainable Cheese Production in California.Saputo kicked in $968,000 in match funds to get the grant. The project is using ethnology delved by Hyperlight Energy.