Brewer's Energy Efficiency Gains

Solution Overview

The challenge of driving down cost and consumption was compounded by the fact that the brewing group had six facilities of different ages and with varying process control systems. However, the engeering team did have an advantage - all six breweries were already running Proficy Plant Applications, which gave them a common platform for tracking recipe execution, key process parametric data and event data.

Proficy fully integrates process and sensory data into a complete set of asset, material and event models. By treating energy and water as elements of the bill-of-materials, the engineering team ensured that all of the conditions and events surrounding good or poor consumption profiles could be analyzed for opportunities to increase utility efficiency. Performing the analysis and subsequent tuning efforts with a complete production and quality tracking system in place also ensured that energy reduction efforts did not compromise beer quality or flavor.
 

Results

By taking a more comprehensive approach to analytics our customer made significant strides in energy efficiency and cost - and added a balanced view of their progress on environmental impact to their overall operating reporting. Their results include: 

• On pace to recover $10Million in energy costs over 5 years 
• Common platform to report and analyze multiple utility inputs (refrigeration, water, gas, electricity) 
• Normalized views of consumption curves allowing for facility differences, seasonality