₱100,000 a month back in your pocket.From day one.
For Philippine milk processors, dairy cooperatives and ice-cream plants. The same Karnot platform that chills your raw milk to 4 °C heats your pasteuriser and your CIP loop — one electricity bill, no LPG boiler, financed by the bank, paid for out of the saving. The heat you throw off the roof today is the heat you buy from the LPG man tomorrow.
The chiller dumps the milk's heat. The boiler buys it back.
Every milk plant runs two opposing thermal jobs at the same time: raw milk arrives warm and must reach 4 °C within 2 hours, while the pasteuriser and CIP loop want 65–85 °C all shift long. Today those two jobs run on two separate bills — Meralco to throw the milk's heat away, the LPG man to buy the same heat back.
Milk quality lives or dies at 4 °C — and your chiller is the bottleneck
Grade-A milk must drop to 4 °C within 2 hours of reception or bacterial count climbs and the batch degrades. Most PH plants run ageing R22 / R404A chillers at COP ~2.5 with a Montreal Protocol phasedown clock on the asset register and service prices rising every year. Karnot iCOOL CO₂ delivers the same ice-water duty at COP 4.2 (Oak Ridge National Laboratory validated) — 40% less electricity on the cold side alone.
The LPG boiler is your biggest controllable cost — and it's optional
HTST pasteurisation (72 °C), CIP caustic and rinse loops (65–85 °C) and crate washing (60 °C) burn roughly 11,400 kg of LPG a year on a 20,000 L/day plant — about ₱968K/yr. But the heat your milk gives up during chilling, captured at the iCOOL CO₂ gas cooler at 75–90 °C, covers the entire heating load. The boiler is retired, not replaced. No flame, no flue, no DENR inspection, no insurance loading.
Chill the milk. Bank the heat. Retire the boiler.
A heat pump moves heat rather than creating it. When iCOOL chills your milk, the heat removed is delivered to the hot side at 75–90 °C — exactly what the pasteuriser final-heater and the CIP system need. Your 90% regenerative plate exchanger stays — we replace the utilities around the pasteuriser, not the pasteuriser.
iCOOL CO₂
Milk chilling, ice water and cold store at COP 4.2. The gas cooler delivers 75–90 °C hot water from the same compression cycle. A1 safety class — no ammonia exclusion zone, no R404A phasedown.
iHEAT R290
Hot-side top-up and standalone CIP duty. Drop-in replacement for the LPG boiler. Outdoor install, sealed 1.4 kg charge, EN 378 compliant — no boiler room, no flame on site.
iSTOR PCM
Thermal battery on both sides. Hot: CIP water ready on demand, charged off-peak. Cold: the cold store rides through a PH brownout with zero compressor load. The milk survives the outage.
iSAVE + iVOLT
iSAVE meters every duty — monthly IPMVP Option B report to your CFO and your lender. iVOLT zero-export solar on the flat plant roof cuts the remaining grid draw a further 30–50%.
20,000 L/day plant. A real number per litre of milk.
Modelled on a 20,000 L/day Philippine milk processor — HTST pasteurisation with 90% regeneration, CIP + crate wash, reception chilling and cold store, 360 day/yr operation. Your plant might be 5,000 L/day (divide by 4) or 100,000 L/day (multiply by 5) — the per-litre economics hold.
| Annual figure · 20,000 L/day | Today · boiler + old chiller | Karnot platform | You stop paying |
|---|---|---|---|
| Process heat (HTST + CIP + wash) | ~11,400 kg LPG/yr | 0 kg · recovered milk heat | ₱968K/yr |
| Chilling + ice water + cold store | COP 2.5 · R404A | COP 4.2 · CO₂ GWP 1 | ₱726K/yr |
| Total thermal energy bill | ~₱2.76M/yr | ~₱1.07M/yr | −61% / ~₱1.69M |
| Scope 1 + refrigerant exposure | ~34 tCO₂e + GWP 3,922 | GWP 1 & 3 · natural | ~70 tCO₂e/yr |
| Total investment (VAT-inc) | (already paid) | ~₱2.0M | 1.2 yr cash payback |
The cash flow. Plain and dull.
CAPEX of ~₱2.0M, financed under a green loan at ~7% p.a. over 60 months. The monthly saving (~₱141K) covers the monthly loan payment (~₱40K) three and a half times over. Net cash in pocket from day one.
We don't guess the saving. We calculate your thermodynamic minimum.
Pinch analysis maps every hot stream in your plant (pasteurised milk that must cool) against every cold stream (raw milk and CIP water that must heat) and computes the three numbers that define your plant's energy performance. A dairy is the textbook case — the analysis practically writes itself.
The absolute least boiler energy your plant needs after maximum heat recovery. If your boiler burns more than this — and in every dairy we have surveyed, it does — the difference is pure waste.
The absolute least chiller energy required after recovery. Everything your chiller removes above this is heat you paid to make and then paid again to throw away.
The dairy bottleneck temperature. Above it: heat deficit. Below it: heat surplus. A heat pump is the only utility that moves surplus heat from below the pinch to the deficit above it — which is why the saving is 61%, not 15%.
New to pinch analysis? We wrote the plain-English guide — no jargon, no PhD required, with a worked dairy example and the composite curves explained in pictures. Then commission a Level 1 Energy Survey (₱90K, refunded in full on install) and we run the pinch study on your actual production data.
You pay nothing up front. The bank does.
Three Philippine banks run green-loan programmes built for exactly this kind of project. The monthly saving covers the loan payment 3.5× over. Net cash flow goes up from day one.
These are loans, not grants. Plus BOI Pioneer Income Tax Holiday under RA 11285 — food-security infrastructure qualifies. Karnot files the loan, the BOI registration, the building permits and the monthly IPMVP M&V report your lender wants to see as part of project scope. You sign at the bank window, not before.
Download the Dairy Processing Application Brief
A 4-page application brief and a 10-slide deck — both ready to share with your plant manager, your CFO or your cooperative board.
4-Page Application Brief
A4 portrait PDF · print-ready. Hero, cash strip, problem + architecture, four products, the 20,000 L/day numbers table, pinch analysis, bank finance, founder quote.
10-Slide Sales Deck
16:9 landscape PDF. The complete presentation — problem, architecture, four boxes, the bill, cash flow, bank finance, pinch analysis, refrigerant trilemma, next steps.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much can a Philippine dairy processor save?
A modelled 20,000 L/day Philippine milk processor saves approximately ₱1.69M per year — a 61% reduction in the total thermal energy bill. Today's setup (LPG boiler ~₱968K/yr + legacy chiller electricity ~₱1.79M/yr) costs about ₱2.76M/yr; the Karnot integrated platform delivers the same duties for about ₱1.07M/yr of electricity. With a 5-year green loan at ~7% p.a., the monthly saving (~₱141K) exceeds the loan payment (~₱40K), leaving roughly ₱100,000 net cash per month from day one. Plants from 5,000 to 100,000+ L/day scale proportionally.
How can the same machine chill milk and heat the pasteuriser?
A heat pump moves heat rather than creating it. When Karnot iCOOL CO₂ chills raw milk from 35 °C to 4 °C, the heat removed is rejected at the CO₂ gas cooler at 75–90 °C — exactly the temperature the HTST final-heater loop and the CIP system need. Today that heat goes off the roof via the chiller condenser while an LPG boiler buys the same energy back. The Karnot platform transfers it across instead: chill the milk, bank the heat, retire the boiler. Your 90% regenerative plate heat exchanger stays — we replace the utilities around the pasteuriser, not the pasteuriser itself.
Can a heat pump really reach pasteurisation temperatures?
Yes. HTST pasteurisation holds milk at 72 °C for 15 seconds, fed by a hot-water loop at 75–80 °C. The iCOOL CO₂ transcritical gas cooler delivers 75–90 °C hot water, and the iHEAT R290 cascade delivers 60–85 °C at COP 4.0+ in Philippine ambient. Between them they cover HTST, CIP caustic/acid/sanitiser loops and crate washing. UHT sterilisation (135–150 °C) retains a small electric or steam top-up for the final lift — but 90%+ of the annual thermal load sits within heat pump range.
What is pinch analysis and why does it matter for my dairy?
Pinch analysis maps every hot stream (pasteurised milk that must cool) against every cold stream (raw milk and CIP water that must heat) and computes QHmin and QCmin — the absolute minimum heating and cooling your process needs after maximum heat recovery. Everything above that minimum is waste. In a dairy the pinch point sits around 30–40 °C, and a heat pump is the only utility that can move surplus heat from below the pinch to the deficit above it — which is why savings reach 61% rather than the 10–15% a heat-exchanger-only retrofit delivers. Start with the plain-English pinch guide, then commission a Level 1 Energy Survey (₱90K, refunded on install) and we run the pinch study on your actual production data.
Is CO₂ refrigerant safe for a food plant?
Yes — CO₂ (R744) is an A1 safety class refrigerant: non-toxic, non-flammable, food-safe, and literally the same gas used in carbonated beverages. GWP of 1 with no phasedown exposure. Compare the legacy options: R404A has GWP 3,922 with quota-driven service prices rising every year, and industrial ammonia is efficient but toxic — exclusion zones, specialist technicians, insurance loadings. Karnot iHEAT R290 (propane) sits outdoors with a sealed 1.4 kg charge under EN 378. Nothing on the asset register carries a phasedown date or an exclusion zone.
What happens to milk quality during a brownout?
The iSTOR PCM thermal battery carries the cold store and ice-water loop through 8–12 hours of grid outage on stored cooling alone — no compressor, no generator. Grade-A raw milk must reach 4 °C within 2 hours of reception; iSTOR makes that deadline brownout-proof. The same battery decouples CIP hot-water demand from heat-pump runtime: the heat pump charges the hot buffer off-peak, CIP draws on demand.
Do we have to stop production for the install?
No. The HTST pasteuriser and its regenerative plate heat exchanger stay exactly where they are — Karnot replaces the utilities around them, not the production line. The iCOOL CO₂ and iHEAT R290 units install outdoors or in the existing plant room, buffers and piping tie in during scheduled CIP windows, and the boiler is retired on handover day. Typical installation is 4–6 weeks with zero lost production days.
What financing and incentives are available?
Three Philippine banks run green-loan programmes that fit dairy CAPEX: DBP SEFP (~6.5–8% p.a., 70–80% LTV, agri-industrial priority), LandBank SEILP (~7% p.a., the natural route for dairy cooperatives), and BPI SDF (~1–1.5% below standard SME rates). Most dairy installs also qualify for BOI Pioneer status and an Income Tax Holiday under RA 11285 as food-security infrastructure. Karnot files the loan application, the BOI registration, the building permits and the monthly IPMVP M&V report your lender wants — as part of project scope.
Want the numbers for your plant?
Send us your daily milk intake (litres), 12 months of LPG + electricity bills and your CIP schedule. We come back with a sized system, your QHmin and QCmin, projected saving, payback — and the bank application ready to sign.