Case Study

Bushmills Distillery - Stark helps the oldest licensed whiskey distillery in the world focus on energy savings.

In 1997, Irish Distillers commissioned a small Monitoring and Targeting (M & T) system into their Midleton, County Cork distillery. The system consists of 28 meters, 1 logger and 5 radio transmitters, monitoring electricity flows only. The system is used to support Energy Cost Centre reporting. It has also been used in decision making for energy efficiency projects.

Following the success in Midleton, Irish Energy Management Ltd were asked to install a system into the Irish Distillers site in Bushmills, County Antrim. The system was commissioned in late 2001 and comprised meters and loggers recording electrical, steam and water flow data.

Project Outline

Old Bushmills Distillery is located in the village of Bushmills, Co Antrim, in Northern Ireland, close to the Giants Causeway (a local heritage site). It has the distinction of being the oldest licensed whiskey distillery in the world, having received their first license to distil in 1608. Today Bushmills Distillery produce a family of whiskeys distinguished by several unique features. First, the unique water source is Saint Columb's Rill, a sweet stream that flows over basalt rock giving a fascinating depth of flavour to Bushmills whiskeys. Second, the distillery produces only single malt, triple distilled Pot Still whiskeys but, like all Irish whiskeys, deliberately omits the peaty smoky flavour that typifies Scotch Whiskey.

Following the success in its Midleton, County Cork site, Irish Distillers introduced an extensive M & T system into its Bushmills, County Antrim site. The motivation for M & T was the need to keep tight control of resource costs in an increasing production strategy. The M & T system made energy and utility efficiency an everyday focus for staff.

The main forms of resources consumed at the Bushmills site are electricity, gas and water. These are now monitored using the RTSU/64 Stark system. The system provides for monitoring in a number of site areas some of which are: Mash and Still house, Malt Bins, Boiler house, Bottling, Warehouses and Visitor Centres. The M & T system supplies continuous data reporting from a single PC. Parameters monitored include steam flows and distillery liquor flows. At present there are 42 utility meters spread throughout the site.

Achievements

The system has only been running for 3 months. However, in that time, management at the site have reported that savings in energy resources have been achieved. They have already used the system to shut down equipment during peak tariff charging periods.

The M & T system has allowed for tighter resource management. Reports from the Stark system are used to monitor resource activity compared to production.

Conclusions

The opportunity to provide M & T to the Bushmills site arose from internal referral. The Midleton site had seen substantial advantage from the introduction of a small M & T system sometime earlier. The results of Midleton were seen by management who in turn saw the advantage of a similar system for their larger site in Bushmills.

The experience at Irish Distillers has shown that significant reductions in resources can be achieved using Stark. The ability to replicate this outside of the Irish Distillers group is clear. The introduction of M & T is a highly effective method of reducing production costs in the brewing industry.