Distilleries to ditch fossil fuels with public money award

More than £11million of public money has been awarded to four Scottish projects to help decarbonise the production of alcohol in the UK.

Awarded in the second phase of the government’s Green Distilleries Competition and supported by the Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, the £11.3million will go towards hydrogen and biomass projects that will help distilleries ditch fossil fuels and develop low carbon heating systems that will make production processes greener and more energy efficient.

The distilleries sector has the potential to cut carbon emissions by half a million tonnes every year – equivalent to emissions from powering more than 60,000 homes or taking around 100,000 cars off of the road.

The projects that have received phase 2 funding in the Green Distilleries Competition are:

• Protium Green Solutions, who are developing a system that uses hydrogen as a fuel source rather than oil in whisky production at the Bruichladdich Distillery on the Isle of Islay
• Locogen Ltd, whose project will be based at the Arbikie Highland Estate Distillery in Inverkeilor near Arbroath are developing and installing a green hydrogen energy system at the distillery, comprising a wind turbine, electrolyser, hydrogen storage and hydrogen boiler system
• Colorado Construction and Engineering, which is based in Livingston near Edinburgh, are developing a novel biofuel batch-gasification system
• Supercritical Solutions, a clean-tech start-up business who are developing the world’s first high-pressure ultra-efficient electrolyser to generate green hydrogen as a feedstock for the distilling process working with Beam Suntory at their Glen Garioch distillery in Oldmeldrum, Aberdeenshire

Simon Clarke MP, chief secretary to the Treasury, said: “Thanks to the UK government’s £11 million investment distillers all over Britain are cutting their emissions. Together with this world class industry we are building a greener future while securing 40,000 high skilled jobs. Having just hosted COP, our commitment to meeting our net zero has never been so strong and it’s vital we continue to drive momentum.”

Scotch Whisky Association Chief Executive Karen Betts added: “This funding is a welcome boost for the industry at a time when Scotch Whisky companies are already working hard to reduce their emissions. As a result, nearly 40% of the industry’s energy is now coming from renewable sources. But we know we need to go further and faster, and that’s where the Green Distilleries Competition is so critical since it supports companies in testing new technologies.

“The results of the work undertaken through the Competition are then shared across the sector, which helps everyone to map further our path to Net Zero. This is exactly the sort of industry-government partnership that will help us to secure a sustainable future for Scotch Whisky and for the communities across Scotland within which we work.”

Matt Bird, CEO at Supercritical, said: “Our collaboration with Beam Suntory and the Manufacturing Technology Centre will help advance the world’s first high-pressure, ultra-efficient electrolyser technology for the production of zero emission hydrogen, helping to decarbonise the whisky industry whilst setting an example for other hard-to-decarbonise sectors.”