BUDWEISER TO POWER UK’S FIRST CARBON NEUTRAL BREWERY

The Budweiser company has gone greener than ever and is firmly committed to green hydrogen to reduce its carbon footprint. As announced at the UK Government’s Global Investment Summit, it has partnered with Protium Green Solutions to build a large-scale hydrogen generation system, which will help the brewer at its Magor factory in South Wales to power the facility.

The hydrogen infrastructure is expected to produce more than 20MW of renewable energy and green hydrogen. Budweiser Brewing Group already powers its brewing operations at Magor Brewery with 100% renewable electricity from solar farms and an on-site wind turbine. The brewer is a pioneer in implementing sustainable solutions and recognizes that the intermittent nature of renewable electricity, in harmony with hydrogen, creates a complementary, natural and emission-free energy solution for its production and supply chains.

Hydrogen will power the brewery’s production as well as its key logistics assets, including heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) and forklifts. The use of green hydrogen technology will help provide carbon-free power and fuel for all of its operations, an important step towards the brewery becoming carbon neutral. This will achieve the elimination of 15,500 tonnes of CO2e per year, the equivalent of removing 3,300 cars from the UK’s roads.

For Mauricio Coindreau, Head of Sustainability and Procurement at Budweiser Brewing Group, %22Sustainability and the well-being of our planet are at the heart of our business. Innovative energy solutions such as hydrogen have huge potential as a key part of our sustainability strategy, helping us to significantly reduce our carbon footprint in the UK. As a business, we are committed to the continued exploration of technology that can help us achieve our ambitious 2025 Sustainability Goals, so the key focus of this project is to ensure the efficient operation, application and sustainability benefits of green hydrogen.%22

Currently, every beer brewed in the UK is produced with 100% renewable electricity through solar and wind power. We eliminate plastic rings from our entire portfolio by 2020 and use 100% British barley, which reduces our carbon emissions and supports British farming. The project, which will be operational in 2024, would build the first large-scale hydrogen generation system at a brewery.