An investigation into the normalisation of water and energy usage in the brewery industry

Abstract

Benchmarks are often used to assist brewers in identifying improvement opportunities; but a comparison of water and energy performances in breweries is deficient without normalising for differences between facilities. The normalisation of water and energy use was subsequently investigated, using SABMiller breweries as a case study. Drivers of water, electricity, and thermal energy usage obtained from the literature were selected, rationalised, and ranked in a Delphi survey of industry experts, and correlated with data from 64 SABMiller sites. The main drivers identified, and the data from 58 SABMiller sites, were then used to develop multi-variable linear regression (MVLR) models. The models, tested with data from six separate SABMiller sites, were able to predict water, electrical, and thermal energy usage to within a seven per cent error. By eliminating the variability in drivers within the control of brewery staff, the MVLR models were used to normalise the performance indices, and enabled direct comparisons between plants.