Sustainability Session
Jason P Smith, Miura North America, Inc.
ABSTRACT: This presentation illustrates how emerging
modular on-demand steam boiler technologies are well suited to address
the energy and environmental challenges facing the North American
brewing industry. Breweries, both startups and well established, face
increasing challenges of minimizing the economic and environmental
impacts of the brewing process on their production while achieving a
consistent high quality brew. Boilers account for nearly half of
industrial energy consumption and represent one of the most energy
intensive systems involved in the brewing industry. While not always the
most visible component of the brewing process, the utility side of
brewing can represent an economic hurdle on the front-end via capital
outlay and an energy management challenge during production due to
process load variability as brewing, pasteurization, and CIP processes
ramp up and down. Two key concepts—modularity and on-demand
response—represent innovative strategies for both minimizing the initial
capital investment tied to utility systems while optimizing boiler
performance with enhanced energy management capability more precisely
matched to process requirements. Modularity enables a startup brewery to
minimize the up-front investment in its utility by purchasing only the
boiler capacity needed with the flexibility to increase steam capacity
with additional modules as production increases. On-demand response out
of the utility enables the brewery to precisely match the boiler output
to the process requirements at any point in time, eliminating
significant energy losses associated with boiler part-load and perpetual
idling operation during process lulls. In the same way that
tank-less/instantaneous water heaters are enabling increased energy
efficiency in the residential sector, compact modular on-demand boilers
are poised to support the same kind of transformation in the industrial
sector. Moreover, given the large amount of energy consumed and the
sharp minute-to-minute variations in process steam demands in the
brewing industry, on-demand steam generation can play a significant role
in increasing energy efficiency while reducing a brewery’s carbon
footprint.
Jason Smith has a background in architecture and
engineering, with more than 15 years of experience with the design and
construction of high-performance “green” buildings and more than 5 years
of experience as a LEED Accredited Professional integrating sustainable
design solutions into facilities that address energy efficiency and
contribute to reducing their environmental impact. Jason is celebrating
three years with Miura North America, directing energy and environmental
initiatives with a focus on energy efficiency advocacy, education, and
market transformation in the area of thermal energy systems. Jason
currently chairs the Energy Efficiency Deployment Sub-committee of the
Department of Energy’s ITP Steam Systems Best Practices Steering
Committee and is an active member of the following organizations devoted
to energy efficiency and sustainability: ESC, ACEEE, ASE, IDEA, APPA,
ASHE, AEE, and USGBC.
