Heineken Invests £25 Million in Manchester Brewery To Install Heat Pumps

Heineken UK has announced that it is investing £25m into a large-scale low-carbon heat project for its iconic Manchester Brewery. The sum of £25m will be invested by the producer of Heineken, Birra Moretti, and Foster's to install heat pumps in order to reduce carbon emissions at its primary facility. The investment is in support of Heineken’s global ambitions to reach net zero emissions across scopes 1 (direct emissions) and 2 (indirect emissions) by 2030, including its UK production sites in Manchester, Tadcaster and Hereford, and across the full value chain and scope 3 (indirect emissions), by 2040. 

The funding will be used to replace gas-fired heating with heat pumps and to acquire renewable electricity to power the new heating system. The system will, most importantly, run across all parts of the site and will allow excess heat from one process to be captured and reused in another.

The initial stage of the project will involve the installation of heat pumps which is expected to be completed by 2024. The installed heat pumps, powered by renewable electricity, will function as an interconnected heat network throughout the site, from brewing to packaging. Heineken Manchester brewery employs 240 people. It’s expected that up to 100 people from around 10 businesses will work on site during the installation of the heat pumps and heat network. The final stage will involve the use of additional renewably energy, plans for which are currently under discussion.

The department of Energy Security and Net Zero has given Heineken UK a £3.7m grant through the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund to install innovative technology to capture heat from various sources, including the refrigeration units on site. This excess heat will then be redistributed and reused to power brewing stages, such as mashing and pasteurisation and even to wash the returnable kegs. By introducing this circular process, waste heat is redistributed from the brewing process to replace the thermal energy previously generated from burning fossil fuels.

Until now the brewing titan has depended on fossil gas to create the warmth needed for certain parts of the brewing process. Once completed the newly installed heat capture and heat pump system is forecast to result in a 45% decrease in gas use on site leading to a reduction in carbon emissions. The technology will also be powered with 100% renewable energy.

The second phase of the project will go ahead in 2024 and will focus on decarbonising the brewhouse of the site. The third and final stage will strive to utilise alternative renewable energy much more broadly.

It is hoped that learnings from the Manchester site can be replicated in Heineken’s other two production sites in the UK, Tadcaster and Hereford.

Heineken UK’s Managing Director said:

“We’ve been around for 150 years and if we want to be here in another 150 years, we need to act now to deliver on our sustainability ambitions. In short, we want to brew a better world. This announcement is hugely positive and represents a sizeable inward investment from our business into UK decarbonisation. There’s been a brewery at this site for well over 100 years, and we’ve been proudly brewing in Manchester for fifteen years. With the city of Manchester’s ambition to reach net zero by 2038, we want to play our part in this journey for the city and its people, and to share the learnings we gather along the way.”

Heineken UK’s announcement this month builds on its company-wide efforts to reduce emissions as they work towards their global ambition to reach net zero across their production sites, The company realises that it cannot achieve this alone but will need to collaborate with partners.

Lord Callanan, Minister for Energy Efficiency and Green Finance, said: 

“I’ll certainly raise a glass in honour of this game changing project backed by government funding that will help Heineken, Manchester and the country reach our collective net zero ambitions. Heat pumps are key to helping us to decarbonise our heating and I’m delighted to see government funding go towards such an innovative scheme that will help cut emissions and show other businesses how to move away from costly fossil fuels.”
 

The company, which is the UK’s largest pub, cider, and beer company, is thought to be the first beverage company of this scale in the UK to install this technology. The brewery produces over seven hundred million pints of Heineken, Birra Moretti and Foster’s per year and even before this latest project has solid sustainability credentials. This includes using renewable energy exclusively from renewable sources as well as being the first Heineken site globally to roll-out the Green Grip cardboard toppers to replace plastic rings in 2020. This is copied at each of Heineken UK’s other scale sites.

Heineken is not the only drinks company to be making significant strides towards becoming more sustainable. Pernod Ricard's whisky brand Chivas Brothers has announced plans to share the blueprint for its heat recovery and low-carbon heat system at its Glentauchers Scotch whisky distillery with the entire drinks sector.

The heat recovery technologies, including Mechanical Vapour Recompression (MVR) and Thermo Vapour Recompression (TVR), are designed to capture and recycle heat generated in the distillation process that would otherwise go to waste. This mix of technologies has successfully reduced energy use relating to the distillation process at the Glentauchers Scotch whisky distillery by 53% so far. The site, as a whole, now consumes 48% less energy.

Like the Heineken UK project, the Chivas Brothers’ project is being partially funded using public investment, from the Scottish government.

Chivas Brothers’ chief executive and chairman Jean-Etienne Gourgues said:

“Heat recovery forms a critical part of our commitment to achieve carbon-neutral distillation by 2026. Findings with such significant impact must be shared; this technology has the potential to transform our industry and accelerate its progress to net zero… As a business with a long history of innovation, we believe this is the right thing to do.“

In further news related to the drinks sector, a Carlsberg Group subsidiary based in Lithuania has become the first brewer in the Baltics to sign a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) that will enable it to operate using 100% renewable electricity.

The brewer, ŠUA, has partnered with energy developer and service firm Green Genius to obtain energy from two solar and storage plants. The first of the plants will come online at ŠUA’s facility in Utena city in May 2024. The second will be larger and will come online in early 2025 near Butrimonys town.

ŠUA already hosts a 1MW rooftop solar array in Utena city and has been working with Green Genius since 2018. The new onsite installation will be 1.5MW while the utility-scale project is 5MW. Carlsberg Group has a global net-zero target in place for 2040.

ŠUA’s chief executive Rolandas Virsilas said:

“For a long time, we have been using only electricity from renewable sources. Now we are raising the bar higher – we will use only local and only self-produced electricity that contributes new green electricity to the grid. I believe that our example will encourage other Lithuanian businesses to take similar actions, because by investing in new green energy capacities, we are not only getting involved in the green transformation but also taking care of Lithuania’s energy security, which, as the events of recent years show, is extremely important.”