Open
Source
We’re sharing our learnings from the successful integration of enhanced heat recovery technologies.
We’re sharing our learnings from the successful integration of enhanced heat recovery technologies.
At Chivas Brothers we have made the expertise and learnings from the successful integration of enhanced heat recovery technologies ‘open source’. The move was made after the application of the technology at our Glentauchers site showed significant benefit in carbon emissions reduction, providing insights that will benefit the industry at large if adopted at other suitable distillation sites.
The heat recovery technologies, including Mechanical Vapour Recompression (MVR) and Thermo Vapour Recompression (TVR), are designed to capture and recycle heat generated in the distillation process that would otherwise go to waste.
To date, these have reduced total energy consumption almost by half (48%) at Chivas Brothers’ Glentauchers distillery, near Keith in Speyside, Scotland, reducing the site’s total carbon emissions by 53% as a result. This represents an energy saving equivalent to powering 4,979 average UK homes, more than all the houses in Keith for an entire year.
“Heat recovery forms a critical part of our commitments to achieve carbon neutral distillation by 2026. Findings with such significant impact must be shared; this technology has the potential to transform our industry and accelerate its progress to net zero. That’s why we’re making our design process and implementation learnings available to all. As a business with a long history of innovation, we believe this is the right thing to do. Collaboration across our industry will be fundamental if we are to meet collective ambitions around sustainability, safeguarding the long-term future of our product and our planet. Understandably, this technology won’t be right for every distillery, but we encourage our peers to explore whether it has the potential to reduce their own carbon output.” – Jean-Etienne Gourgues, Chairman & CEO
We have ambitious plans to roll out these integrations across all viable sites as part of a drive to achieve carbon neutral distillation by 2026. Chivas Brothers expects these technologies to reduce its overall energy consumption and carbon emissions in distillation by one third, which is more than 30,000 tonnes of CO2 per annum.
The sharing of the design process and implementation insights is intended to put collaboration ahead of competition on the road to net zero, rooted in the belief that distillers must work together to create a sustainable future for Scotch, Scotland’s largest export.
The following case study outlines the benefits and savings achieved through the implementation of these technologies, plus additional detail on the basis of design used.
We hosted an open house event at our Glentauchers site in October and November, creating an opportunity for other distillers to see the technology, how it has been integrated and facilitate industry learning.
