Heineken Forced To Can ‘Green’ Power Plants
By johnbscot. Filed in Climate Change, energy-saving |
Two revolutionary ‘green’ power stations have been shut down because they don’t work properly and they pump out too much smoke.
Dutch company Heineken had been hoping to improve its green credentials
The biomass plants installed at Heineken’s breweries in Manchester and Tadcaster were hailed as the first in the world to turn brewery waste into electricity and steam.
Designed to burn grain that has been used in the brewing process as well as wood chips, the £35m investment was described as “a major step towards sustainable energy and self-sufficiency for the brewing industry”.
In November last year, the company pledged that the new power stations would reduce carbon emissions by 30,000 tonnes a year and would provide all of the electricity needed at both breweries.
But a company memo leaked to Sky News says the power stations have now been turned off because the fuel is too wet and “excessive smoke” from the chimneys might upset their neighbours.
The fuel system is not robust and cannot handle the design fuel.
A Heineken memo leaked to Sky News
Richard Jeffers, Heineken’s UK engineering manager, told staff the plants are being shut down and workers will be “redeployed”.
“We do not have a way of starting the plants up from cold where we can guarantee that we do not cause excessive smoke, causing disruption to our neighbours,” he said.
The memo says that plans to try to adapt the plants have been scrapped and that the company is trying to find something else to burn.
“The fuel-handling system is not robust and cannot handle the design fuel,” it states.
“We will conduct an in-depth review of the biomass fuel supply chain available to us in the UK with the aim of identifying an economically and operationally viable fuel source.”
The plants cost £35mJeffers makes no promise about when the plants, which were designed to power the breweries for at least 30 years, will be started up again, but says a “financial evaluation” will be conducted.
A company spokeswoman told Sky News that in three months of operation the power stations have only ever burned woodchips but insisted that they could burn spent grain at some time in the future.
“We are committed to finding the right operational conditions to enable the plants to provide clean, cheap and sustainable energy for our breweries,” she said.
Tags: energy, energy-saving, renewables
