There are a number of ways you can operate your brewery in a more environmentally-friendly manner. Here, Dean Robson from CleanEarth outlines the core benefits of renewable energy and the key variables that make renewables viable for a brewing business.

The key benefits of renewables can be simply summarised as: lower carbon emissions and lower costs.

Wind and solar now generate electricity at the lowest cost of any method of generation. This is true at utility scale, with wind and solar farms powering the national grid, but also for self-generation, where renewables are consistently cheaper than buying from the grid.  

As an example, we’ve recently completed a solar project that generates electricity at 3.2 pence per kWh, when the national average for manufacturing businesses is 9p per kWh. And the payback period on the investment was just three years.

The commercial advantage lies not just in the reduced cost of energy, however, but also in the ‘fixed’ price for the lifetime of the system, which is at least 25 years. This de-risks the company’s financial planning, by removing the volatility of wholesale energy prices. 

On the environmental side, the urgent, global need for decarbonisation is utterly beyond dispute. Even the oil companies are now taking action, belatedly, as they acknowledge that climate change is already having far-reaching impacts. 

Corporate carbon footprints are now important KPIs, and it’s increasingly common for senior executives to have carbon targets alongside their financial targets – and for their remuneration to be tied to both.

This is the result of pressure from customers, shareholders and staff, as well as other organisations in the supply chain. And it’s why companies of all sizes are investing in renewable generation. It’s a visible, measureable, high-impact way of reducing their carbon emissions. And it saves them money.

BUDWEISER BREWING GROUP AND ONE OF THE UK’S LARGEST WIND TURBINES

BEHIND-THE-METER TURBINE FOR THE WORLD’S LEADING BREWER

• Size 3.5 MW

• Annual Output 9,000,000 kWh

• Annual Carbon Saving 2,600 tonnes

• Lifetime Carbon Saving 65,000 tonnes

When your brewery produces more than a billion pints of beer a year, your energy consumption is going to be pretty hefty. And if your corporate commitments include brewing all your beers with 100% renewable electricity by the end of 2021, you’re going to need some large-scale wind or solar generation.

CleanEarth’s turbine in Magor, South Wales, provides nearly a quarter of the energy consumed at Budweiser Brewing Group’s flagship UK brewery. That’s 9 million kilowatt hours of electricity each year, supplied via private wire under a power purchase agreement (PPA), directly to where the beer gets brewed.

Given the local wind speeds and the maximum tip-height allowed under the planning consent, the project needed to be optimised around the total swept area of the turbine blades, to harness the available wind as efficiently as possible.

This led to blades that are 68 metres in length – which CleanEarth believe are the longest ever to enter commercial operation on UK soil. They sweep through an area equivalent to two Wembley football pitches.

With a tip-height of 150 metres, the combination of blade length and engineering efficiency allows the Vensys V136 turbine to achieve an output of up to 3.5 megawatts. If Budweiser weren’t brewing beer with it, that would be enough to power 2,300 Welsh homes.

With blades of this magnitude, navigating the road network becomes especially challenging. So the conventional route by road was dropped in favour of shipping them more than 800 miles by sea and into Bristol’s Avonmouth Dock, leaving just the last 20 miles to be negotiated by road.

While this made for some short-lived lunchtime tailbacks on the M4, it was a much simpler and less disruptive approach than the conventional trip across the country from an east coast port.

As well as providing a quarter of the Magor brewery’s electricity, the wind turbine will also save more than 2,600 tonnes of CO2 emissions every year. That’s well over 65,000 tonnes of carbon savings during its operational lifetime.

This makes a significant contribution to Budweiser Brewing Group’s ambitious sustainability goals, and moves them closer to that 100% renewables target.

As Paula Lindenberg, President, Budweiser Brewing Group UK&I, said: “We’re committed to brewing Britain’s most sustainable beers. Partnerships like this one with CleanEarth help drive positive change – making it easier for people to make sustainable choices.”

Dean Robson, Managing Director of CleanEarth, concurs: “Too often corporate goals are not coupled with strong and effective action – but Budweiser Brewing Group were supportive at all levels, and acted throughout with a clarity that’s consistent with their bold environmental targets.

“We are proud of the work we’ve done with Budweiser Brewing Group on this project,” said Dean. “As a result of this collaboration, CleanEarth will generate low-carbon, low-cost energy into the Magor brewery for years to come.”

KEY QUESTIONS ABOUT RENEWABLES FOR BUSINESS

Here are some the most common questions that businesses need to address if they’re thinking of generating their own renewable energy.

SELF-INVESTMENT OR PPA? 

Should you make the capital investment and own the system yourself, or buy the electricity through a Power Purchase Agreement? 

Because of their high capital cost, wind turbines are usually operated through PPA arrangements where the developer owns the turbine and sells the electricity under contract (as is the case with Budweiser). Solar installations are more likely to be via self-investment, where the client pays the developer to install and maintain the system and they get all the power generated for ‘free’.

HOW MUCH ENERGY? AND WHEN?

Self-generation works best for medium to large energy users – which includes most brewers, especially those that have major heating or cooling requirements, or have in-house bottling and canning lines. 

The commercial returns are highest when most (ideally all) of the power is used directly on-site, with no excess being exported to the grid. This means it’s important to analyse not just the total consumption but the profile over time-of-day and day-of-year. We use this to model the system’s projected generation against the usage profile, to find the financial sweet-spot for each business.

WHERE ARE YOU?

Your location is important for both wind and solar power, but for different reasons. Irradiance levels are the biggest factor for solar, while wind speeds are the key metric for turbines. This means the north of Scotland is great for wind but less attractive for solar, while the south of England is the reverse. And Cornwall (where CleanEarth are based) has the best of both worlds!

Location is also important if planning consent is needed. This is required for all wind turbines, but not for roof-mounted solar PV. We are intimately familiar with the planning regulations in England, Scotland and Wales (they’re all different) and can quickly determine whether or not a proposed site will be viable.

LEASEHOLD OR FREEHOLD? 

Do you own the building or land where the installation will take place? It’s obviously a lot simpler if you do, but it’s not essential. It is still possible to negotiate with the landlord – as we did on a big scale in 2019, when we built 2.5 MW wind turbine next to Accolade Wines’ vast bottling plant in Avonmouth. (We do like to keep the UK’s beer and wine flowing!)

WHAT TYPE OF BUILDING?

For solar PV, modern buildings tend to have the easiest roof profiles to work with, although older buildings can usually be made to work with a little ingenuity (and a bit more cost). Anything from 100 square metres upwards is potentially viable, as this equates to about 10kW in generation. For wind turbines, they can either be sited adjacent to the building (as we did with Accolade Wines) or a short distance away with a connecting cable (as we did with Budweiser Brewing Group).

CAN YOU GET A GRANT?

There are numerous funding schemes active across the UK which can pay up to half of the capital cost of installation. We’ve done several projects on this basis, the most recent being Ludlow Brewing Co, which is receiving up to 50% funding from the Marches Renewable Energy scheme.