St Austell installs 600 extra solar panels
This means Hare Brewery will be able to generate an additional 230,511kWh of electricity a year.
The panels take up the entire roof space of the brewery’s distribution centre in Warmley, Bristol and was installed by Cornwall-based firm ZLC Energy.
This was also the case for the solar arrays installed at St Austell Brewery’s head office and Cornwall Distribution Centre in St Columb alongside the 892 solar panels previously installed at Hare Brewery.
The additional 608 new solar panels add to St Austell's aim to champion sustainability and reach its net zero goals.
Net zero plans
The latest additions to Hare Brewery mean it is expected to brew its beer and operator on the energy the panels produce during the summer months with the system designed so almost 100% of the generated power will be consumed on site.
Meanwhile, during the winter months, the site will draw a minimal amount of electric from the grid.
It is estimated the arrays will save 50,000kg of CO2 a year – equal to 85.5 passengers’ round trip to Munich.
St Austell Brewery head of sustainability Elle Sambrook said: “This is a really big step towards our net zero plans to eliminate our avoidable emissions.
“We set ourselves an additional goal to increase our on-site green energy and reach 50% energy consumption from renewables across all sites by 2030.
“These solar panels are a big part of making that goal a reality and we are already at 40% onsite generation at Hare Brewery with this installation.”
Improvement projects
ZLC has worked with St Austell Brewery since 2012 to help work towards sustainability goals, the solar energy company’s managing director Matthew Shepherd said.
As part of St Austell’s overall sustainability aims, production manager for Hare Brewery Will Hartley has also been leading on brewing beer with less energy.
He added: “Our teams are focused on several different improvement projects to reduce our energy consumption and waste.
“The method with the biggest impact is likely to be optimising our boil evaporation [meaning] effectively, we will use less steam to achieve our boil.
“This will mean we reduce the amount of natural gas we use to make our beer.”
