Presenter: Yoshinori Ito, Asahi Breweries, Ltd., Ibaraki Brewery, Japan.
Asahi Breweries is pursuing environmental initiatives centering on diverse energy conservation measures in order to conserve the global environment and restrict carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. At last year’s MBAA Annual Conference, Asahi Breweries gave a presentation on its energy conservation management system, as one of many energy conservation measures that Asahi Breweries employs, including the use of a proprietary pre-isomerizer and evaporator (PIE) system that shortens the wort boiling time by adding pre-boiled hops. All Asahi Breweries plants carry out wastewater treatment using anaerobic wastewater treatment equipment based on methane fermentation, which is integrated into the plant wastewater treatment facilities. The process releases methane gas as the main ingredient for biogas, which is recycled as a fuel for steam and afterburner boilers used for gas turbine cogeneration. Gas turbine exhaust gas from cogeneration has a high flow rate and low oxygen density, and Asahi Breweries found that it was not possible to combust low combustion-heat biogas on its own in afterburner boilers. It was found to be necessary to simultaneously combust liquefied natural gas (LNG) in a separate burner in order to use the biogas effectively. Asahi Breweries has successfully reduced steam consumption throughout its breweries by deploying diverse energy conservation measures, including PIE. However, the decrease in steam consumption caused a decline in the rate of biogas use, as the biogas could not be utilized for cogeneration afterburner boilers without simultaneously combusting LNG to achieve effective combustion. Therefore, Asahi Breweries developed a new biogas burner for gas turbine exhaust gas to improve the rate of biogas use. The biogas burner enables low combustion-heat biogas to be combusted on its own, even if the exhaust gas has a high flow rate and low oxygen density. These biogas burners are improving the rate of biogas use and are having a significant impact on reducing CO2 emissions at breweries.
Yoshinori Ito joined Asahi Breweries in 1989. After joining the company, Yoshinori was put in charge of a new product development and bringing new products to market. Yoshinori joined the Nagoya Brewery, Brewing section in 1996 and became the manager of Development Laboratories for Alcoholic Beverages, Department of Beer Product Development in 1999. Yoshinori joined marketing headquarters in 2000. The marketing of Honnama became the first happousyu in Asahi Breweries, Ltd. in October 2000. Yoshinori joined the Product Strategy Department in 2003. In 2006 Yoshinori became the deputy general manager (Ibaraki Brewery) of the Production Technology Center and general manager in 2009.
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