DENMARK – Global brewer, Carlsberg has unveiled plans of investing in its brewery in Fredericia, Denmark to reduce water usage at the facility by 50% as well as cut energy consumption by 10%.
The investment is expected reduce water usage from 2.9hl of water per hectolitre of beer to 1.4hl of water. According to Carlsberg’s Integrated Supply Chain, the Fredericia brewery will also serve as the test site for the water recycling plant.
The investment will also enable the the brewery to recycle upto 90% of all process water, becoming the first brewery to eliminate almost all water waste.
Carlsberg Group integrated supply chain executive vice-president Philip Hodges said: “This is a big investment for us but also a necessary next step on our journey towards ZERO water waste across all our breweries.
“By recycling 90% of all process water, the Fredericia brewery will halve its current average water consumption for brewing beer, taking it below our 2030 target.
“The Fredericia brewery has consistently focused on resource management and water reduction but we need better use of advanced water recycling technologies to reach the ambitious targets in our Together Towards ZERO programme.”
The Fredericia brewery, which includes a bottling plant and warehouse terminal, is powered by biogas and green electricity.
The upgrade is expected to cut energy consumption by 10 per cent by reusing hot water and generating biogas. If everything goes to plan, Carlsberg said it could start rolling out the technology to its breweries more widely.
The company said it expects the water recycling plant to be in test production by the end of 2020, and fully operational by early 2021.
This will contribute to Carlsberg’s ambitions of eliminating carbon emissions as well as reduce water consumption by 50% at its breweries by the end of 2030.
As part of the initiative, the company aims to reduce water usage from 3.4hl of water per hl of beer at the 2015 baseline to 1.7hl of water per hl of beer by 2030.
