Irish Distillers (Pernod Ricard) said it will invest €50 million ($52.1 million USD) to enable Midleton Distillery to entirely phase out the use of fossil fuels to power its operation.
The carbon-neutral roadmap for Midleton Distillery will involve several projects aimed at reducing overall energy use by improving on-site energy generation efficiency and recycling waste heat in the distillation process. In time, the distillery’s remaining energy requirements will be fulfilled by generating power from renewable sources.
As part of the initial phases of the roadmap, Irish Distillers has invested in highly efficient boilers which will require less fuel to operate.
To deliver subsequent phases of the roadmap, Irish Distillers is working with global experts and partners on innovative Mechanical Vapor Recompression (MVR) technology which will see a closed looped system capture, compress and recycle waste heat in the distilling process. This the first time this technology has been used across multiple batch processes in distilling.
The first three phases of the roadmap alone are expected to reduce emissions by up to 70%. The final phases will see the introduction of renewable sources of energy, including green hydrogen and biogas to power the distillery and close the door on natural gas usage. To achieve this, Irish Distillers has partnered with local experts at EI-H2 to explore opportunities to source sustainable renewable hydrogen.