Low Carbon Distilling

Low carbon distilling is becoming a critical concern of Government. Traditional distilling can take one litre of fuel oil to produce one litre of spirit, and it is recognised that this energy intensive process must be overhauled.

We designed Ardnamurchan Distillery, which is one of the greenest distilleries on the planet. It uses  local timber to produce steam for distilling. Our design for NcN’ean distillery did the same. 

Now the focus is on finding alternatives to steam as a heat transfer medium. Work is being carried out on mineral oil which is used in the pharmaceutical industry. Mineral oil needs less energy to get up to temperature, yet it benefits from continuous distilling processes rather than batch production. Ideally electrical chilling can be taken out of the process and heat recycled. 

We have numerous projects underway, each is different because the local resources are different. The heat source may be tidal electricity, or wind power, or electric heat pump technology. 

Government money is now involved which will hasten this push for reducing carbon. If your distillery isn’t planning low carbon production yet, it will be soon.