The Hofmühl Brewery in Eichstätt, Bavaria, will be
the world’s first solar-powered brewery. The project for implementing the
solar concept created by Krones AG, Neutraubling, was signed and sealed at the
drinktec in Munich on Thursday, 15 September 2005.
Hofmühl’s owner, Benno Emslander, hopes the solar
concept will ensure “that in 10 years at the latest we shall be operating our
brewery with absolutely clean energy.” He’s also confident that a
solar-powered brewery will be viable not only in sunny countries like Spain but
in Bavaria as well: “In Eichstätt, we have about 75 % of the insolation they
get in Valencia. So it’s definitely within the realm of the possible.”
“With the solar brewery, Benno Emslander has once again
lived up to his reputation as a visionary when it comes to brewing technology.
Hofmühl was also the first brewery in the world to opt for our
resource-economic Merlin and Pegasus brewing systems”, said Hans-Jürgen
Thaus, Deputy Chairman of Krones AG’s Executive Board.
But what motivates this mid-tier brewer to repeatedly
assume the role of a pioneer? To quote Benno Emslander: “Quite simply, I
believe that Krones’ ideas work. Our joint development projects, you know,
have all turned out to be path-breaking. And that’s the way it’s going to be
with the solar-powered brewery.”
Background information on the solar concept of Krones AG,
Neutraubling
For brewing beer, large amounts of water have to be heated
and boiled so as to dissolve the malt sugar and the hops. At present, this is
mostly done using oil or gas. This is where the solar concept comes in: its
basic principle can be compared with a solar-powered central heating system.
For producing hot water, the brewery uses high-performance
collectors, with which it heats its brewing containers – the “radiators”.
If the sun is not shining, a large hot-water storage tank ensures the requisite
reserves.
The fundamental precondition for the concept is that the
solar energy be used with maximised efficacy and that the absolute energy
consumption in the brewhouse is minimised. Krones AG also offers the requisite
machines and processes. For wort boiling (the largest consumer of energy when
making beer), for example, Krones’ innovative Merlin and Stromboli
technologies cut the consumption of primary energy by up to 75 per cent compared
to traditional boiling systems.
But the brewhouse is just the beginning. In the next step,
for example, the plan is to use photovoltaics for helping to generate part of
the electricity required. A second idea is “solar” refrigeration, which the
brewer can use to cool the beer.
> Krones
