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Neat Whisky Solution Powers Island
Distillery
A Hebridean distiller has installed a
pioneering new system to get volts from
malts to power its distillery
exclusively from recycled whisky waste.
On the remote Scottish island of Islay,
the privately owned Bruichladdich
distillery has installed a
ground-breaking new scheme based on an
old concept to become self sufficient in
power.
Residual organic material left in ‘pot
ale’ (the warm, watery post-distillation
waste) is converted in to biogas by the
action of microbes living in the absence
of air - a process known for some time
as anaerobic digestion.
The principal was first identified by
scientist Robert Boyle around 1670, who
noticed flammable bubbles emerging from
the floor of a muddy pond. Although the
first digester was built in 1859, it
never took off being too vast,
expensive, inefficient and reliant on
constant scientific monitoring.
Now an economically viable, compact
version has been designed by Dr Paul
Ditchfield of Biowayste Systems. This
modern, hi-tech version uses a bespoke
culture of microbes, and is scaled
specifically to suit Bruichladdich’s
operations.
Modern technology has improved the
efficiency and replaced the day-to-day
technical expertise required allowing
small companies to benefit from this
simple, green science for the first
time.
When Bruichladdich was built by the
young Harvey brothers as a
state-of-the-art distillery in 1881,
Victorian pragmatism ensured many new
efficiency ideas were incorporated in to
the design, many were subsequently
adopted industry-wide.
From the Victorians up until today there
was nothing that could be done with the
distillery's watery waste which was
merely piped out to sea. Now, thanks to
a bunch of bilious microbes, it is
recycled to produce electricity.
Managing director Mark Reynier said: "We
wanted a ‘beautifully simple’ solution
in keeping with the pioneering Harvey
brothers - not just a conscience-salving
piece of paper telling us how good we
have been; we wanted waste out, power
in. Now we can power the whole
distillery from our whisky waste. Drink
Bruichladdich and save the planet! How
neat is that?"
The biogas is created by 12 tons of
microbes feeding off the pot ale in two
reactors. Once commissioned, the gas is
fed to a generator to create electricity
to power the distillery and its 10 acre
site, including bottling hall,
computers, offices, warehouses and
vehicles.
It is anticipated that energy savings
will produce a payback of 2 years on the
almost £1/3m cost. On top of this Bruichladdich
recently launched the only Islay organic
whisky.
The first digester was built in 1859,
but the level of continual technical
expertise required, the enormous scale,
high capital costs, and low level of
efficiency - severely limited its
commercial viability, meaning it could
be used only on very large industrial
projects in a part only solution.
Roseile, Diageo’s £40m mega-distillery
recently installed a type of digester.
The Biowayste compact version brings the
science in to the reaches of small
businesses such as food manufacturers
and farmers.
Bruichladdich's carbon savings will be
225 tons per year.
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