Sustainable Plant
April, 2011
MillerCoors is a company with a unique foundation of great beer brands and 288 years of brewing experience. Product brands include a wide variety of domestic, import, craft and specialty beers: Coors, Miller, Blue Moon, Peroni, Pilsner Urquell, Henry Weinhard’s, Molson, Hams, Keystone, Mickey’s and many more.
From water usage and packaging sustainability to brewery waste and energy consumption, MillerCoors is always looking for ways to reduce its impact on the environment. The company strives to make more beer while using less water, reusing or recycling nearly 100% of brewery waste, and relying on each of its six major US breweries to seek out the most efficient and environmentally sustainable brewing practices.
A challenge brews at Irwindale
Opened in 1980, the company’s Irwindale, California brewery lies 26 miles east of Los Angeles. The brewery employs nearly 600 people who produce seven million barrels of beer annually.
In the spirit of the MillerCoors commitment to sustainability, executives at the brewery implemented a clean, renewable source of energy for the plant, while simultaneously minimizing emissions and curtailing the cost associated with disposal of waste byproduct from the beer manufacturing process, in the form of an anaerobic digester.
MillerCoors engaged EPS Corp., a company specializing in energy management solutions for industrial manufacturers, to analyze the situation and propose a solution. EPS performed a thorough plant-wide energy usage analysis to determine the best possible use for the biogas generated through the wastewater treatment process. It concluded that the best opportunity for savings and emissions reductions was to build a biogas-fired cogeneration plant.
The cogeneration plant would generate electricity for the beer-making process and hot water that would be used for heating the anaerobic digester. Upfront verification from EPS showed the project would provide a compelling return on investment through greater efficiency, as well as less waste and reduced emissions — all coupled with minimal impact on production and in-line with MillerCoors’ sustainability initiatives. MillerCoors decided to move forward.
The recipe for a successful implementation
Based on the initial analysis and data-driven ROI projections for the project, EPS was selected to perform the engineering, design, procurement and construction for installation of the generator and electrical interconnection for a 1 MW biogas-powered cogeneration plant.
The work started with obtaining air permits from the Southern California Air Quality Management District and preliminary approvals from Southern California Edison for interconnection. EPS started the application process for incentives, working with Southern California Gas Company for the California Public Utilities Commission Self-Generation Incentive Program. Once in place, engineering began and major equipment was ordered.
After completing engineering and receiving a building permit, EPS began constructing the cogeneration system. The system is contained in two containerized engine enclosures with externally mounted heat rejection and heat recovery equipment. The containers were placed on concrete piers and external connections to gas, water and electrical services were made. Once the connections were made and commissioning completed, the electrical interconnection testing and air emissions testing were conducted.
Drinking in the savings
The cogeneration system is in two containerized enclosures with heat rejection and heat recovery mounted externally and external connections to gas, water and electrical services.
Biogas was recovered from beer waste by utilizing an anaerobic digester. The biogas was used to fuel the cogeneration plant, which produced electricity to power the facility. The thermal energy produced by the cogeneration plant was used to heat the digester and to offset high-quality steam/hot water for use in various beer manufacturing processes. EPS implemented the complex biogas cogeneration project on schedule and within budget.
The new biogas-powered cogeneration plant provides the brewery with 1 MW of power. This saves MillerCoors the cost of purchasing that power from its electric utility and reduces the California brewery’s carbon footprint by providing the necessary power at a lower emissions rate. Excess gas is available at the facility to be used for additional power generation capacity. In addition, it helps the brewery reduce waste by using recycled byproducts as fuel.
| Project Cost | $1,474,040 |
| Utility Rebate | $1,000,000 |
| Net Cost | $474,040 |
| Generated kWh | 8,703,936 |
| Annual Savings | $936,178 |
| Simple Payback (years) | 0.502 |
| Internal Rate of Return (Pre-Tax) | 99% |
| Net Present Value (8-year) | $8,206,645 |
In addition to reducing the amount of electricity that needed to be purchased from the grid, MillerCoors received a $1 million rebate from the California Public Utilities Commission Self-Generation Incentive Program. One of the largest rebates ever awarded on a project of this kind in the state of California, it boosted the simple payback on the project to six months.