Technical Solutions for Food Processing Industry
San Francisco State University
Recipient
San Francisco, CA
Recipient Location
11th
Senate District
19th
Assembly District
$139,454
Amount Spent
Completed
Project Status
Project Result
This project is near completion and the contractor is finalizing the final report.
The Issue
The California food processing industry has experienced increased costs for labor, energy, and transportation over time. The industry generally has small profit margins, short processing seasons, and is limited in its ability to pass the costs of regulatory programs through to customers. Although some incentive programs exist, equipment is expensive and the economics may be poor, especially for seasonal food processing operations. There is need to find technological solutions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to maintain the food processing industries competitiveness in California.
Project Innovation
The purpose of this agreement is to: identify and recommend market-ready and advanced energy technologies that will reduce energy costs, increase efficiency, and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other pollutants for California's food processing industry. The focus includes commercially available and advanced (emerging) technologies that could reduce GHG emissions and be implemented in the near term and the long term, such as by 2030 and beyond. Additionally, the recommendations hope to mitigate pain points faced by California's food processing industry and improve common operations and processes to maintain their industrial competitiveness in California. Lessons learned during this process will also inform future Energy Commission solicitations related to energy technology needs and research targeted at California's food processing industry.
Project Benefits
This agreement will result in the identification of market-ready and advanced, natural gas saving energy technologies for the California food processing industry. For those advanced technologies, the recipient will identify research needed to improve the technology to overcome barriers to adoption, and help assess actual installations to determine whether actual match estimated savings. By so doing, the work resulting from this agreement will benefit the food processing industry in reducing energy costs, increasing efficiency, reducing GHG emissions and other pollutants and mitigating pain points faced by California's food processing industry.
Environmental Sustainability
This project will report on advanced commercially available and emerging technologies with the greatest potential for natural gas savings, GHG (and criteria/toxic) emissions reductions in the short and long term and provide recommendations for overcoming barriers to implementation by the food processing sector. As a result, implementation of technologies identified through this project could reduce energy use, operating costs and GHG emissions and other pollutant reductions.
Key Project Members
