OVERVIEW

Beer production and consumption in our country has been developing strongly in recent years. In the past period, Vietnam's beer consumption demand has grown continuously, reaching 4.9 million liters of beer in 2019, a growth rate of 18% compared to 2015 with average consumption in about 50.88 liters/person/year. However, by 2020, Vietnam's beer consumption will show signs of slowing down partly due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and largely due to Decree 100/2019/ND-CP (regulating fines with alcohol and beer drinkers who driving vehicles in traffic) has officially taken effect to reduce beer consumption by at least 25% (according to Bloomberg).

Despite this, Vietnam is still one of the largest beer consuming markets in the world. While the world's average annual beer consumption growth is about 1%, the Vietnamese market has tripled compared to the world average.

Beer is made from four basic ingredients: barley, water, hops, and yeast. The basic idea in the olden days was to extract sugars from grain (usually barley) so that it could be fermented into alcohol and CO2, making beer. It can be said that all beers are produced according to a process based on a simple recipe. The key to the brewing process is that the grain is "maltized." Depending on the local tradition, the grain used can be barley, wheat or sometimes rye.

Illustration of the beer production process.

The development of the brewing industry leads to an increase in energy use, while energy costs play an important role in the composition of product prices. In addition, increased energy consumption also contributes to increased CO2 emissions, exacerbating the impact of climate change.

At the United Nations Climate Change Summit (COP26) held in the United Kingdom, Vietnam also made a strong commitment to a 30% reduction in methane emissions by 2030, and towards the common goal of being carbon neutral by 2050. This is seen as the goal to tackle the current climate crisis. The message as well as the determination of Vietnam has been highly appreciated by the international community. To achieve this, it is necessary to join hands of the business community, as well as to make policies and regulations for urging businesses to implement.

In addition, in the face of the negative impacts of climate change, many large brewers have gradually set targets to increase energy efficiency, and cut carbon, even neutralize carbon in production to 2030 and in the entire supply chain to 2040. This requires domestic beer brewing enterprises to step by step improve energy efficiency. That results in both reducing production costs and improving business’s image, social and environmental responsibility.

CURRENT STATUS OF ENERGY CONSUMPTION

The brewing process consumes a large amount of energy for production, water supply, compressed air, lighting and refrigeration systems. Besides electricity consumed for production equipment (average growth of about 6%/year), enterprises in the sector also consume many other forms of energy, most of which is coal (growth of about 7% per year) and other fuel products such as diesel oil (DO), liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), biomass (biomass), etc. with negligible growth rates.

Among the forms of energy consumed by the brewing industry, coal and petroleum fuels account for a significant proportion (approximately 58%) of the total primary energy supplied to that one. These fuels are mostly used for boilers to produce steam for production stages. Other needs include direct production stages such as heating, transmission, etc. Power consumption accounts for about 36% of the industry's total energy demand to supply in-house production equipment such as drive, pumping, refrigeration, lighting, HVAC systems and others.

Electric demand Structure: Cooling process 32%, Transmission system 46%, Boiler 2%, HVAC 7%, Lighting 7%, Other 6%)- Consumed energy strcture: Oil 25%, Electric 36%, Coal 33%, Other 6%;

Most of the thermal energy is used in the brewing and pasteurization operations, while the power consumption is more evenly divided between fermentation, brewing and space and utilities. The structure of energy consumption distributed to the main loads of the plant is shown in the table below.

In order to promote economical and efficient use of energy in the brewing industry in Vietnam, on September 14, 2016, the Ministry of Industry and Trade issued Circular No. 19/2016/TT-BCT (referred to as Circular 19 for short) that regulates energy consumption in the beer and beverage industry. Energy consumption norms are regulated according to the capacity scale of factories, specifically:

(i) For factories with a capacity of less than 20 million liters, the consumption norm by 2020 was 306 MJ/hectolitre, from 2021 to the end of 2025 is 286 MJ/hectolitre,

(ii) Up to 100 million liters, the consumption norm by 2020 was 215 MJ/hectolitre, from 2021 to the end of 2025 is 196 MJ/hectolitre, and

(iii) Over 100 million liters, the consumption norm by 2020 was 140 MJ/hectolitre, from 2021 to the end of 2025 is 129 MJ/hectolitre.

Any factory that does not meet energy consumption norms at the specified time and fail to come up with feasible plans to ensure the norms according to the above roadmap will be penalized according to current regulations. However, these set targets are still higher than similar indicators of some countries such as Canada, Japan.

It can be said that the use of energy in the brewing industry is significant, which also has a significant impact on Vietnam's carbon emissions. Meanwhile, the potential for energy savings in the brewing industry is huge. Taking advantage of that energy source, world beer brewing enterprises in general and Vietnamese brewing industry enterprises in particular will save significant production costs and, more importantly, minimize the impact on the environment, get more trust from consumers and demonstrate their social responsibility.

ENERGY SAVING POTENTIAL

Like other industries, the brewing industry is always looking for ways to reduce production costs without sacrificing product quality. Energy costs for beer production are currently estimated between 3% and 8% of total production costs. Therefore, improving energy efficiency is identified as one of the important ways to reduce production expenses, lower product costs, improve competitiveness, enhance business image and protect the environment.

In advanced countries in the world, research and application of energy efficiency solutions in breweries are widely deployed. The leading countries in technology of this sector are  EU, American and Japan. The applied technologies focus on reducing consumption in the cooking area, cooling system, pasteurization system, saving hot water and reducing emissions in production and accompanied by solutions on management in the factory and new energy policy.

According to Circular 19, there are 12 typical solutions that can be applied to beer production enterprises in Vietnam. According to the implementation results at some enterprises in the industry, the amount of energy saved has achieved remarkable results. There is a factory that has reduced coal consumption by 8% and electricity consumption by more than 0.5% compared to previous time (before applying energy saving solutions) to produce each 1000 liters of beer. There are factories that apply inverter solutions for compressors, which can save up to 25% of power consumption. In addition, along with the improvement of the management system and production optimization, the factory has saved up to 20% of electricity consumption in the main production areas. For boilers, there are factories that have applied furnace renovation solutions to increase heat exchange efficiency, waste-heat recovery that contributed to increasing boiler efficiency from 62% to 76%, bringing profits of hundreds of million VND, payback time less than 1.5 years.

It can be seen that businesses in the industry have made great efforts to improve energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, according to the survey results, there are still many potential solutions to save energy and reduce emissions at beer factories, including solutions applied in production stages (19 solutions) such as grinding, boiling, cooling, fermentation, processing, and extraction. In addition, there are a series of other general solutions (26 solutions) that affect the operating mode or optimize related auxiliary systems such as boilers, electrical systems and refrigeration systems. Despite being advanced solutions, most of them has a payback period of less than 3 years.

Therefore, the potential for energy saving in the brewing industry is still open with many opportunities. It is necessary to focus on improving technology and management aspects, the application of new technology in production and strict management in the operation process will bring about efficiency in energy use. Besides it will save production time, increase machine life, reduce waste and CO2 emissions into the environment.

SOLUTIONS TO PROMOTE ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND REDUCE EMISSION

In manufacturing technology, engineering plays the most important role among energy saving and emission reduction solutions. Therefore, it is necessary to regularly update information about the latest and best used techniques and scientifically apply according to the characteristics of each factory.

Besides technology solutions, production management solutions also play an important role in saving energy for the factory. They are optimizing production schedule, limiting the number of stops between production cycles, raising awareness, promoting technical improvement initiatives of employees through training programs and competitions at enterprises.

After a period of time, the equipment will show wear and tear. So for operation and maintenance activities, it is necessary to strengthen the periodic inspection to detect and quickly overcome the risk factors. In addition, the development of energy use norms through the energy management system should be encouraged to apply. The energy management system is equipped with devices to measure, compare and evaluate data, energy efficiency, thereby detecting abnormal fluctuations and taking timely measures to minimize losses of energy.

For management agencies, it is necessary to strengthen propaganda to raise awareness of the business community on efficient use of energy and reduction of CO2 emissions to contribute to achieving the goals of ensuring energy security and Vietnam's commitment to reduce emissions. In addition, the management agencies needs to strengthen the inspection work, especially dealing with deterrence against enterprises that have not strictly complied with the provisions stated in Circular 19. In addition, the management agencies also mobilize the support of the international organizations, especially in order to achieve the goals and commitments at COP26 to allocate appropriate financial and technical support to the industry's businesses.

Thus, energy efficiency promotion will contribute to improving management capacity for plants and protecting the environment, especially increase productivity and profits, reduce energy costs, comply with legal regulations, enhance the image and social responsibility of the business to consumers and partners in the context of deep international integration, at the same time ensure environmentally friendly targets as well as contribute to Vietnam's commitments on reducing greenhouse gas emissions./.

MSc. Nguyen Thanh Ha

& Vietnam Energy Conservation and Energy Efficiency Association

References:

1) Vietnam Energy Statistics;

2) Statistics of Vietnam Electricity Corporation;

3) Circular No. 19/2016/TT-BCT dated September 14, 2016 of the Ministry of Industry and Trade regulating energy consumption norms for the beer and beverage industry;

4) https://www.ase.org; https://www.energy.gov/; https://www.energystar.gov.