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Government injects cash into sustainable Scotch
The Scottish Government is pumping money into green initiatives around the country, with whisky distilleries among the nine businesses awarded a share of the £7.2 million funding grant.
Nine Scottish businesses have secured government funding to develop energy-saving projects. A total of £7.2 million is being shared across the businesses, which span the food and drink manufacture and timber pallet processing industries.
As well as being awarded £7.2 million by the Scottish Government through the fund, another £11.8 million has come from private investment.
The Scottish Industrial Energy Transformation Fund (SIETF), which supports projects to reduce carbon emissions created during energy-intensive manufacturing processes, has awarded Chivas Brothers’ Strathclyde Distillery £3.1m. The company was the only one of the nine businesses to receive funding of over £2m.
The Pernod Ricard-owned brand’s Glasgow site produces grain whisky for blends including Chivas Regal and Ballantine’s.
Money from the grant will go towards use of Mechanical Vapour Recompression (MVR) technology. The system captures waste heat from the still house that would otherwise be lost to the environment and re-route it back to the stills.
Chivas Brothers claims that the MVR technology will reduce carbon emissions for the distilling process by more than half and reduce energy usage by over 46,000 Megawatt hours per year – enough energy to power 17,000 homes for a year.
The GlenAllachie in Speyside is also one of the grant’s recipients, bagging between £1m and £2m (the exact figure was not disclosed). It will use the money to install its own MVR system, claiming it will cut GlenAllachie’s energy demand by 50%, as roughly 70% of its current energy usage comes from powering its four pot stills.
The GlenAllachie’s operations director Richard Beattie said the grant would allow the independent firm to make big strides in sustainability, as reported by Whisky Magazine. “Green technology tends to be very expensive during the initial phases of development. It can, therefore, often prevent smaller, independent firms from installing the equipment required to achieve their green ambitions. This cash injection from the SIETF, backed by the Scottish government, is vital to facilitate such a move,” he said.
Mark Kent, chief executive of the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA), said approaches to reducing emissions need to be “as diverse as our distilleries and locations”.
He said: “Each site will have different challenges, but through support from the Scottish Government with grants like SIETF, distilleries can accelerate decarbonisation in their own operations towards our shared industry goal of 2040.
“As an industry with a strong track record delivering environmental improvement, we are determined to achieve net zero emissions in our own operations and supply chains as fast as possible. Innovation, collaboration and an enabling policy framework will enable us to continue to celebrate and produce Scotch Whisky for the long term.”
Green Hydrogen
The Scottish Government has also announced £3.1 million of funding for green whisky developments in Moray, creating 100 new jobs.
Funding will go towards the development of a green hydrogen hub in Speyside, where water will be split into hydrogen and oxygen using renewable energy.
Fuel and can be used for fuel for transportation, commercial and industrial heat or stored to meet future demand.
Green hydrogen produced at the site will provide energy for over 40 sites across the region, including distilleries and distiller hauliers, The National has reported.
Carbon capture and storage company Storegga has matched the Scottish Government’s funding, bringing the amount invested into the project to £6.2m.
In more good news for Scotch whisky, researchers have uncovered a new method of extracting whisky waste, which could be worth up to £90 million, for use in pharmaceuticals, food, drink and cosmetics. Read more here.
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