With more than 165 years old history, Dreher inherited a mindset through the generations that has a comprehensive view of sustainability. We think that to have sustainable future, we need to have a holistic approach to all our environmental impacts including:
- Operation, energy and water consumption in the brewery
- Cultural offers such as our Beer Museum and Beer Dinners
- Societal effects such as our employee wellbeing, responsible drinking, wide non-alcoholic portfolio.
This mindset is present in our everyday operations as well – a good example of this is the three-year long compressor modernisation project.
Compressor change with additional benefits
The energy consumption of beer production has a significant environmental impact, primarily related to the energy demand of the brewing and cooling processes. One of our main corporate sustainability goals is to reduce the per unit energy consumption and CO2 emission – and so we have made several investments towards this purpose in recent years.
An investment of HUF 3.5 billion is currently underway, that aims to replace the refrigeration compressors, as the energy consumption of our currently used technology is high. Preparation started in 2018, and construction began in spring 2019, and is expected to be completed in 2021.
hanks to the replacement of the compressor, we will be able to achieve significant energy savings. We are expecting to save 0.4 kWh/hl of per unit energy, which is a total of 1 million kWh per year. This could be about the combined annual electricity consumption of a small village of 1500 inhabitants, or the energy needed to make 60 million slices of toast!
This modernisation can reduce the total power consumption of the plant by 8% compared to 2019 levels. Another great benefit of the project – and also its goal – is that we will be able to reduce the amount of stored ammonia used in the brewery to operate our refrigeration systems by more than half (14.7 tonnes to 5 tonnes). This also means a significant reduction of the risk of ammonia leakage.
Sustainability on every level
During the project, we pay special attention to reuse ammonia instead of handling it as hazardous disposed waste – we sell it to other companies who need it. We plan to do the same with the replaced refrigeration equipment: we resell them to other companies. As these are fully functional devices that we have replaced for a more optimal and energy-efficient operation.