Since the energy crisis in the 1970’s there was a steady increase in costs for primary energy. And nowadays everybody knows that these costs have to be reduced in the production process to come to economic products, which the consumer is able to afford. Further, the spoilage of primary energy leads to higher emission rates, which are also due to higher costs and pollution. Therefore the lowering of energy consumption must be seen as a very important factor during the whole process of production. In a brewery the brewhouse is the most energy consuming part – with mashing, heating and boiling of the wort. But it is not only the thermal energy, electric energy has to be considered too. For example, German breweries did have lowered the specific fuel heat consumption by around 40 % from 1980 to 1997. The electric energy consumption kept nearly the same in this time. But this can be
explained by the fact that the thermal energy saving potential in the brewhouse is much higher than the electric energy saving potential. To give some values, German breweries in the range of 300.000 hl to 500.000 hl of sales beer (SB) a year have a whole specific electric energy consumption of 7 – 12 kWh/hl SB and a whole specific thermal energy consumption of 90 – 150 MJ (≡ 25 – 42kWh)/hl SB. From this very high value of thermal energy the brewhouse can take part in up to 65 %, so that you come to a very high energy saving potential (11, 21).

Energy savings in the brewhouse