Delivering resource efficiency as part of distillery sustainability program: For one of the world’s largest spirits distillers, we identified significant water and energy savings through a series of audits at their North American plants.
An integrated team of experts from both our Environment and Health and Water businesses identified how the five already energy-efficient facilities could further reduce energy use by 10% with a payback of about 2.5 years. Our team identified best options from improved thermal management (boilers, heat recovery, chillers). Capital project opportunities ranged from boilers to biomass projects to lighting to increased use of waste heat and simultaneous generation of heating and cooling to combined heat and power opportunities.
Our recommendations included options for including energy efficiency in design guidelines and maintenance practices, as well as establishing procurement policies for higher efficient equipment to be purchased as existing equipment fails. The effort also highlighted the importance of expanding and utilizing existing metering systems. Water use, we found could be reduced by as much as 287MMgal/year (1 million m3) by addressing once through cooling, with additional options around water treatment and reuse. Our energy and water work were completed as a part of our larger suite of sustainability services to that client.