Biodiesel technology provider helps make brewery carbon-neutral
Photo: BDI-BioEnergy International AG
October 29, 2015
BY Ron Kotrba
Biodiesel process and biogas technology provider BDI-BioEnergy International AG and Brau Union Österreich, part of the international Heineken family, celebrated the opening of a new spent-grain fermentation plant at the Göss Brewery in Austria, the last milestone in a series of efforts to make the facility 100 percent carbon-neutral. Energy from the brewery’s residual materials will be used for steam generation and excess gas will be converted into renewable electricity. Furthermore, the digestate, a byproduct of the spent-grain fermentation plant, will be used as a high-quality fertilizer.
“With the construction of this industrial spent-grain fermentation plant, we were able, due to the optimal integration of our biogas process, to supply a convincing solution to this environmental project, and thus to help Brau Union Österreich on its way to a completely carbon-neutral plant,” said Edgar Ahn, member of the executive board of BDI-BioEnergy International.
The effort is part of Heineken’s sustainability initiative, “Brewing a Better World.” Since 2003, Göss Brewery started to implement renewable energy in its processes. Energy supply is now 100-percent based on renewable energy and carbon emissions from fossil fuels will be zero. This has been accomplished with electricity from hydropower, biomass district heating, solar thermal energy and renewable energy from the newly built spent-grain fermentation plant from BDI-BioEnergy International.
Nearly 40 percent of the brewery’s heat requirement is met from waste heat discharged from the neighboring Mayr-Melnhof sawmill. Ninety percent of the waste heat generated in the brewing process is used to heat water. A new type of boiling system is used during the brewing process, which helps save electricity and water. A solar plant also helps to generate renewable energy. And now, thanks to the new spent-grain fermentation plant, no more fossil gas will be needed at the complex.
Advertisement
“We are immensely proud that beer production at Göss will in the future be fully CO2-neutral thanks to the beer grain fermentation plant,” said Brau Union Österreich CEO Markus Liebl. “This makes it the first carbon-neutral large-scale brewery in the world.”
Advertisement
Related Stories
TotalEnergies on April 22 announced plans to reconfigure the petrochemical operations at its refinery in Antwerp, Belgium. One planned change will add sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production capacity via coprocessing.
CARB on April 4 released a third set of proposed changes to the state’s LCFS. More than 80 public comments were filed ahead of an April 21 deadline, including those filed by representatives of the ethanol, biobased diesel and biogas industries.
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality on April 18 proposed to delay the 2024 annual report deadline for the state’s Clean Fuels Program due to a cyberattack and extended outage of the Oregon Fuels Reporting System.
Aemetis India plant receives $31 million of biodiesel orders from OMCs for delivery in next 3 months
Aemetis Inc. on April 21 announced the company’s subsidiary in India, Universal Biofuels, received multiple orders for an aggregate of $31 million for the delivery during May, June and July of more than 33,000 kiloliters of biodiesel.
Desmet has been awarded a new contract by LG-ENI Biorefining, a joint venture between LG Chem and ENI Italy, to will deliver a HVO pretreatment plant in Daesan, South Korea. The biorefinery will produce SAF, renewable diesel and naphtha.
Upcoming Events
