Brewing beer can also be energy-efficient - thanks to measurement-based optimization

08-Oct-2024

Brewing beer is energy-intensive, which results in high costs - for now. This is because "time-variable electricity prices" - i.e. electricity prices that vary depending on the time of day - also enable the beer industry to make an important contribution to the energy transition through more flexible production processes. The Institute of Metrology, Automation and Quality Science (BIMAQ) at the University of Bremen is researching how this can be implemented in breweries in the BrewFlex project with partners from the industry.

Germany already generated 56% of its energy requirements from renewable sources in 2023. On the way to climate neutrality, it is important that the demand side also makes its electrical loads more flexible - i.e. shiftable in time. The expansion of time-variable electricity prices is expected in the coming years, which will further motivate the flexibility of industrial consumers. The Institute of Metrology, Automation and Quality Science (BIMAQ) at the University of Bremen is also researching this using the example of small and medium-sized breweries.

This industrial sector has a high energy consumption, which has a strong impact on production costs - for the time being. The BrewFlex project is now investigating the potential of making electrical loads more flexible. "In addition to flexibilization, we are also investigating consumption optimization by increasing efficiency," says Yannik Schädler, research assistant at BIMAQ. He is leading the research on this topic at the university institute.

Focus on small and medium-sized breweries

"The focus is on small and medium-sized breweries because they make up the majority of German breweries. They often lack the resources to become more efficient and flexible," explains Schädler. "In order to achieve reliable results, real measurement data forms the basis of the analyses." The BIMAQ measurement technology institute at the University of Bremen is responsible for data collection, processing and analysis. The know-how on business management aspects and clever communication comes from the Vereinigung Deutscher Wissenschaftler e. V. (VDW), that on the brewing process and typical procedures in a brewery from the Versuchs- und Lehranstalt für Brauerei in Berlin e.V. (VLB).

This consortium has already collected initial data, visited breweries and determined a theoretical flexibilization potential from the load profiles of various systems. This was compared with the boundary conditions of the brewing process and some technical boundary conditions. "We used the data to determine the technically feasible flexibilization potential," says Yannik Schädler. "This in turn was compared with the business and organizational framework conditions - such as duty rosters. The result was the economically feasible potential for BrewFlex."

The main result of the project is now a website that will help companies to obtain an initial estimate of their individual potential for flexibility and compare themselves anonymously with other breweries.

Increased efficiency is desired - but how to implement it?

The second goal is to help optimize consumption. Discussions with the brewing industry revealed that many SME breweries are definitely looking to increase efficiency. "However, they are unsure which systems they should start with in order to reduce their consumption as quickly as possible," says the Bremen engineering scientist. The project developed the idea of providing the lowest possible threshold for this development by anonymously comparing the efficiency of a brewery with breweries of the same size. In concrete terms, this option should also include the ability to compare specific energy consumption by differentiating between individual (energy-intensive) brewery sectors, such as the cooling system or bottling plant. General recommendations for optimization in the individual sectors round off the online tool.

These two tools will soon be made available to the brewing industry on a project website. "The tool does not replace the energy consultant, but provides specific information on whether and where it might be worth consulting one," says Schädler. "The possibility of an anonymous comparison of efficiency has always met with a high level of interest in our discussions, so we are looking forward to high user numbers."

High savings potential, especially in storage

Interim conclusion: It is already clear that a "classic flexibilization" of the process steps of mashing, lautering, boiling and cooling the wort as well as bottling has little chance of success (less than 5% savings with high organizational effort). "But we have discovered that storage offers great potential. Beer is currently cooled to around 0° Celsius for storage, but it can be stored in a 2° Celsius wide interval around this temperature without affecting its quality. Here, it makes sense to postpone the cooling process by a few hours in order to make optimum use of the feed-in from a photovoltaic system, for example." The inertia of the system is generally high enough to ensure that the specified temperature interval is not exceeded.

In the project, which will run until 2025, there are plans to look at some special cases and communicate the results efficiently with industry. Work is also being done on the transferability of the BrewFlex approaches to other sectors.

Note: This article has been translated using a computer system without human intervention. LUMITOS offers these automatic translations to present a wider range of current news. Since this article has been translated with automatic translation, it is possible that it contains errors in vocabulary, syntax or grammar. The original article in German can be found here.

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