Pâtes Warda Turn to Trigneration for Efficient Agrifood Production

Pâtes Warda is a subsidiary of the Rose Blanche Group, one of Tunisia’s leading agrifood organisations, involved in the selection, transformation, and marketing of wheat and its derivatives, as well as animal food products. The group operates across 17 production sites and has 33 subsidiaries, employing a workforce of 4,000 employees.

Clarke Energy has provided a total of 15MWe to five of Rose Blanche’s production facilities, offering a comprehensive turnkey solution that encompasses engineering, installation, commissioning, and maintenance of their cogeneration plants. One of these facilities is Pâtes Warda, which specialises in the production of pasta and couscous, boasting a daily production capacity exceeding 520 tons. Pâtes Warda exports its products to 60 countries worldwide. To enhance energy efficiency and support decarbonisation efforts, the factory has chosen the trigeneration (CCHP) solution utilising INNIO Jenbacher gas engines.

In addition to cogeneration, Pâtes Warda leverages the heat generated by the plant to produce chilled water for its industrial processes, achieving an overall energy efficiency exceeding 80% (electricity and thermal). Clarke Energy offers a flexible, reliable, and long-lasting absorption-based refrigeration technology within the CCHP system, which is not only well-established but also economically efficient for air conditioning systems, reducing CO2 emissions. These CCHP systems operate with heat, making use of relatively affordable ‘excess energy,’ resulting in low operating and lifecycle costs, all while utilizing water as a refrigerant, thus eliminating the need for ozone-depleting substances.

The installed engine at the Pâtes Warda site, commissioned on October 5, 2023, is a Jenbacher JMS624, producing 4.40 MWe of electrical output and 2 MWe of chilled and superheated water. This trigeneration plant will generate an annual output of 16.5 GWh of hot water.

The engine is connected to the national grid, offering the capability to operate in island mode and the flexibility to reach up to 40% of the engine’s nominal load (rated load). This trigeneration plant is expected to result in a more than 32% reduction in the energy bill for the Pâtes Warda factory during the first engine cycle, after accounting for operating costs. Moreover, it will lead to a reduction of more than 8,293 tons of CO2 emissions.