One of the most outstanding projects in this area was opened at the Brauerei Wieselburg. The brewery, which has long been regarded as the most modern in Europe, is brewed in the field of heat production and is characterized by a cooperation project with a neighboring company: the company WIBEBA-HOLZ operates next to the Wieselburg brewery a hardwood saw.
The brewery obtains district heating from this, a total of around 8 GWh per year is planned. These cover around 50 percent of the Wieselburg brewery’s heat requirement, which was around 57,000,000MJ in 2012. In order to be able to provide the brewery with district heating in the form of steam (instead of hot water), WIBEBA-HOLZ built its own biomass power plant.
Brauerei Wieselburg convinces with cooperative project
The Wieselburg brewery has been working on the energy optimization of its production processes for many years. The focus of the improvement has been in recent years, particularly in the area of process and building technology. Investments in innovative heating systems with low heat consumption in the area of the largest energy consumers in the brew house or the recovery of waste heat from production were the main focus. In building technology, particular attention has been paid to energy-saving low-temperature heaters and regenerative ventilation systems for new installations and the modernization of existing buildings. For example, floor heating systems of more than 6000 m² have been installed in the storage halls, all of which are heated by waste heat. All these measures mean that the Wieselburg brewery today is one of the most energy-efficient companies in the industry. Numerous participations in international energy benchmark studies of breweries show the Wiesel brewery among the best 5 per cent in the world-wide comparison of breweries and thus prove the success of the breached path. This very positive development in the past is now an impressive continuation in the cooperation project with WIBEBA-HOLZ. While efforts to improve energy consumption have been carried out so far, the new approach now opens up new possibilities to think about the energy carrier. If the thermal energy requirement of the Wieselburg brewery has been covered exclusively by natural gas so far, there have been some initial ideas like & nbsp; the operation could also be further developed in the direction of CO2 neutrality.
In the course of the design, it became clear that a mix of different energy sources would be needed to cover the processes with green energy. Studies on the energy-related utilization of the by-products, such as beers or surplus yeast, on biogas with the possibility of direct combustion in the boiler or the generation of electricity via combined heat and power were just as important as the use of energy from wood chips, bark or by-products of wood refinement. Because of the different energy levels required by the brewery, a 3-division was found that best describes the pressure levels of the steam network. The highest pressure level is in the range of 5 to 8 bar steam from the own steam boiler. About 25-30% of the total amount of biogas would be covered by direct combustion. This is followed by the average pressure range in the range of 2 to 4.8 bar steam, which could be covered by means of district heating coupling from wood and accounts for the largest proportion with about 50 percent of the heat requirement. A further 20-25 percent of the energy amounts are related to the lowest temperature range below 1 bar steam pressure. “Of course, we were not able to process any of the mentioned variants alone, so we looked for partners to test the concepts for their feasibility. In the WIBEBA-HOLZ company, we found an excellent partner to implement the proposed concept of energy supply via steam, “says Braumeister, DI Christian Huber, describing the project’s planning,” I am very pleased that we are today with the official opening of the district heating system WIBEBA and Wieselburg brewery can cover approximately 50 percent of the energy supply of the brewery CO2-neutral. With this project, the Wieselburg brewery set a milestone in the direction of sustainable beer production. “
