Sustainability in the beverage industrial sector: decarbonisation of a Scotch whisky distillery

The importance of sustainability is nowadays well known worldwide and taken in consideration in every aspect of people’s lives. In this context, since energetically speaking industry is one of the most consuming and thus pollutant fields, the scope of this study is to analyse the beverage industrial sector, in order to individuate the options for a decarbonisation of facilities in this area. At first, a brief description of production processes of some alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages is made: soft drinks, brandy and whisky manufacturing are presented. Then, focusing on a Scotch whisky distillery, a variety of decarbonisation options that are applicable to each step of the whole production chain are listed and explained. Considering that one promising option is represented by anaerobic digestion of by-products, with consequent production of biogas, the energetic potential of waste materials resulting from the three aforementioned beverages production is investigated in this sense. In the following part, an overview of different kinds of energy system models is carried on, concentrating on how the industrial sector can be modelled through each one of them. Among this list, the simulation software HOMER Pro was chosen to model a Scotch whisky distillery energy system, that was taken as a case study. Within the model, different configurations with renewable energy sources such as photovoltaic, wind and biogas are considered in order to identify the best solution for the decarbonisation of the plant.