Green Distilleries competition: expressions of interest
Updated 7 September 2020
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Background
In the 2020 Budget, the Chancellor announced £10 million of new research and development (R&D) funding to help decarbonise UK distilleries. This aligns closely with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s (BEIS) wider innovation work to deliver on the government commitment to accelerate the commercialisation of innovative cheap, clean and reliable energy technologies, enabling the UK to meet net-zero.
It is estimated that there are over 400 distilleries across the UK. The spirits sector is estimated to have a gross value added (GVA) of £8.25 billion with Scotch whisky providing £5.5 billion. £4.7 billion was through exports, making up 21% of all UK food and drink exports.
The production of whisky is around 7 times more energy intensive than that of gin and directly produced around 530,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2018. The majority of these emissions come from the generation of heat for the distillation process, which accounts for approximately 83% of the distillation industry’s fuel consumption. 56% of the fuel used is natural gas. However, due to the remote location of some of the distilleries, the industry still uses a range of fossil fuels including medium/heavy fuel oil.
Scope of the call
The £10m Green Distilleries programme aims to address decarbonisation in the spirits sector by accelerating the development of low carbon fuel switching solutions or enabling technologies that are currently at a technology readiness level between 4 and 7 and could improve the emissions saving potential compared with current fuels.
The decarbonisation opportunities for the distillation industry can be split into 4 main groups
- energy efficiency
- fuel switching
- resource effiency
- carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS)
This competition will address fuel switching, as this is seen as the highest priority for decarbonising the industry. Fuel switching offers the highest carbon reduction opportunity due to the wide use of fossil fuels to produce heat for the distillation process.
The Green Distilleries programme will take a portfolio approach to funding and aims to fund a range of different solutions, which could include electrification, hydrogen, biomass or waste. In addition, enabling technologies will be considered and could include fuel conversion, transportation or storage. The programme will be phased and will start with feasibility studies with a subsequent demonstration phase.
Phase 1 - feasibility (up to £500,000)
This phase will award up to £75,000 per project to develop a number of fuel switching solutions. It will be divided into 2 Lots:
- Lot 1 will focus on fuel switching of the process and onsite power production
- Lot 2 will focus on innovation around fuel switch enabling technologies.
As part of this feasibility study we would expect the following:
- a project description explaining how it would enable fuel switching
- an engineering design for implementation
- an assessment of the benefits and challenges of the solution including capital and operating costs, process risks, the greenhouse gases mitigated, and how the process could be scaled, against a counterfactual
- a costed development plan for each process describing the key steps to commercialisation, including the significant barriers and risks. This should also include a detailed focus on the component(s) to be piloted in Phase 2, a project plan for the demonstration and a business plan for how the process will continue to be developed after the funding for the pilot ends
- a route to market assessment including significant barriers and risk, and an assessment of potential spill-over benefits
Phase 2 - pilot demonstration (up to £9 million)
This phase will consider applications to pilot key components or further develop the design of the new fuel switching solutions. A pilot demonstration is not limited to a physical demonstration and may only be for part(s) of the process. This could include detailed process modelling, detailed optioneering or an engineering study.
The work being funded must largely be conducted in the UK.
Expression of interest
If you are interested in applying to the programme, please email industry.innovation@beis.gov.uk titling the email Green Distilleries, and include your company name and the Lot you are most interested in. We’ll then ensure you are notified once further details become available.
The expression of interest is for planning purposes only. Expressing interest at this stage does not advantage a supplier and failing to express interest does not preclude a supplier from participating in the competition. This expression of interest notice and the next phase of the competition will also be advertised on Contracts Finder.