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Supported by
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Benchmarking and
Energy management Schemes in SMEs
Measure List Breweries
Process-related
Improvement Opportunities
(scroll down for a more comprehensive description)
To download this list in Excel format click
here
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Energy Efficiency
Measure |
Stage of
productivity/ Short description |
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Mashing:
Replacement
of existing plate filter with a compression one. |
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Boiling/ Cooling: Energy efficiency method
to recover the heat losses. |
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Boiling/ Cooling: New technology of boilers
aiming at meeting current and future needs. |
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Boiling/
Cooling: A list of measures to improve the efficiency of existing boilers. |
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Boiling/
Cooling: New technology to reclaim
heat from excess
boiler water. |
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Boiling/ Cooling: Re-usage of steam of low
grade. |
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Boiling/Cooling: Method to remove the
condensed steam. |
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Boiling/
Cooling: Energy saving method improving the efficiency of the system. |
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Boiling/
Cooling: With the application of the Boiler Efficiency Tracking program,
breweries check boiler efficiency quarterly, using standardized measurement
methods. |
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Boiling/
Cooling: Vapour
recompression is an established technology for reducing energy costs in
evaporation. It is divided in two main technologies. |
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Boiling/
Cooling: A
mechanical system limiting the required evaporation. |
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Boiling/
Cooling: An amount of energy saving methods is accomplished. |
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Fermentation:
A well-designed plant is installed to recover CO2 from fermentation |
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Sterilization/ Pasteurization: Usage of
filtration systems for the pasteurization process. |
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Sterilization/ Pasteurization: Energy
efficiency method as the non-alcoholic beer is becoming more and more
popular. |
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Sterilization/ Pasteurization: Usage of heat
pumps and heat exchangers to recover heat. |
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Sterilization/
Pasteurization: Flash pasteurization requires less space, steam, electricity
and coolant |
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Packaging: The water is passed through a heat
exchanger, where heat is captured to pre-heat incoming wash water with the
estimation that the heat exchanger reduces steam consumption. |
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Packaging: A new cleaning and label removal
process that incorporates several caustic bath cycles and heat recovery with
using fewer chemicals. |
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Packaging: Effective
measure in reducing the total amount of glass and other packaging materials
used by consumers. |
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Process in general: For industries such as
breweries that have process heat/steam or cooling and electricity
requirements, the use of combined heat and power systems can be an important
energy efficiency measure as well as a measure for reducing the environmental
pollution. |
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Process in general: Like heat recovery and reuse, water
conservation and reuse approaches seek to best match |
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Process in general: Modern Technology in the
process stage. |
Full description method
1.
Use of compression filter: The compression filter reduces
cleaning costs by reducing the need to rinse the filter with water (since it is
cleaned by air). The process also increases yield and reduces water use
2.
Usage of
vapour condenser: All the heat for the brew house comes from steam supplied by two new,
energy-efficient natural gas boilers. Heat lost from the boiling wort
(unfermented beer) in the brew kettle is recovered and used to pre-heat future
batches of wort with a vapour condenser on the exhaust stack.
3.
Energy efficient boiler
plant: New energy-efficient, low nitrogen oxide (NOx)
boilers are installed to meet current and future steam demands. Those boilers
have stack economizers that reclaim heat from the flue gas to preheat feed
water for the boiler.
4. Improvement of boiler efficiency: The most significant
measures to improve the efficiency of the existing boilers are firstly the replacement
of the inefficient heavy fuel oil fired burner with an automatically controlled
rotary-type burner, secondly the installation of a new water pump-heating
station and two feeding pumps, a heavy fuel oil flow meter, a water flow meter,
a water temperature sensor, and an automatic panel for measuring and control of
the boiler operation process.
5.
Blow down
economizer/preheating of the feed water: A blow down economizer is added to the above
boilers to reclaim heat from excess boiler water and is used to preheat feed
water for the boiler. By preheating the makeup water, the Btu/hr input of the
boiler drops while the Btu/hr output remains the same.
6.
Steam
recovery in the boiling phase: When the water is blown from the high-pressure boiler tank to remove
impurities, the pressure reduction often produces substantial amounts of steam.
This steam is low grade, but can be used for space heating and feed water
preheating or other applications in the brewery.
7.
Steam traps: Steam traps have the function of
removing condensed steam and non-condensable gases without losing any live
steam.
8.
Deaerator: The condensate of oxygen on the boilers is scrubbed before it returns to
the boiler by a deaerator. This decreases the amount of boiler blow down and
decreases makeup water, improving energy efficiency and requiring fewer
chemicals to treat the makeup water.
9.
Boiler efficiency tracking
program: The Boiler Efficiency Tracking is a program that
places renewed emphasis on proper tuning and testing of boilers, with the goal
of reducing fuel costs, improving boiler reliability and safety, and lowering
air emissions per heat energy produced. Through the Boiler Efficiency Tracking
program, breweries check boiler efficiency quarterly, using standardized
measurement methods.
10. Thermal/ Mechanical vapor recompression:
In thermal vapour recompression, a portion of the
evaporated water vapour is compressed by high-pressure steam and reused.
Thermal recompression provides less costly machinery than straight steam heated
designs but requires higher pressure steam. Mechanical vapour recompression
(MVR) systems have been used in breweries since 1980 and can achieve energy
savings because the generated useful heat contains more energy than the
electricity required to compress the steam
11.
Merlin system: The Merlin wort boiling system is an
external wort boiling system. It is designed such that the wort is contained in
a whirlpool holding vessel and is continuously fed into a steam heated cone
container. It consists of a whirlpool and an evaporation vessel with boiling
equipment whereby the wort passes through both vessels in a circulatory loop.
The increased surface area and exposure of the wort to heat limits the required
evaporation.
12.
Brewing at high specific gravity: High gravity brewing can defer capital expenditures, may increase brewing
capacity (with more efficient use of plant facilities) and may improve product
quality. Other
benefits include increased flexibility of beer type, reduced product losses,
reduced water use and reduced labour and cleaning costs
13.
CO2 recovery system: It is now being used CO2 systems
instead of pumps, which affect the beer production process. This carbon dioxide
can be recovered with closed fermentation tanks and used later in the
carbonation process.
14.
Filtration for the pasteurization
process: While
pasteurization is the traditional approach to sterilize beer, an alternative
approach is the use of filtration systems. Membrane filtration can
significantly reduce the amount of waste material, thereby reducing disposal
costs.
15.
Dealcoholization process: The Dealcoholization process is
established with means of usage of membranes, by using reverse osmosis filters and spiral wound
units
16.
Heat recovery in the pasteurization
procedure: Heat contained in the rejected water can be recovered using heat pumps
or heat exchangers. The operation of the heat pumps can be matched to the
heating and cooling requirements of the bottle washer.
17.
Flash pasteurisation: Flash pasteurization has
been widely adopted by brewers in Europe and
18.
Heat recovery in the bottle washing
procedure: In order
to reduce the heat demand in the later stages of the cleaning process, bottles
are preheated in a recuperation bath using heat recovered from the bottles
leaving the cleaner.
19. Cleaning efficiency improvements:
Improved
balance of the cleaning process means that fewer chemicals are required.
20. Recycling of bottles: On buying bottles of beer, customers pay a small deposit that is
refunded to then when the empty bottles are returned to the retailer. The
bottles are then sent back to the brewery to be refilled.
21.
Saving energy with Cogeneration: The new system features
a gas turbine cogeneration plant that uses a low-NOx premixed lean-burn
combustion system to generate high pressure steam. This steam is used to run a
steam turbine-driven refrigerating machine.
22.
Water reuse: Like heat recovery and reuse, water
conservation and reuse approaches seek to best match and reuse high quality,
medium quality, and low quality water in various applications. Reduced water
use will not only reduce effluent charges, but will also reduce water
purchases, water treatment costs, as well as energy for water treatment and
pumping.
23.
Ultrasonic separation: High frequency ultrasonic stationary
wave forms can be used to aggregate and separate suspended solids from a
process stream. It is possible to allow for continuous separation using this
technology.
Note 1 The sole
responsibility for the content of this publication lies with the authors. It
does not represent the opinion of the Community.Β The European Commission is not
responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.