Diageo plans £6m spend on bioenergy plant in Scotland

??A planning application has been submitted to build the new plant, which will produce energy by burning draff (the spent grain left over from distilling whisky) at the Glenlossie site near Elgin in Scotland.??

The proposed new plant will build on Diageo’s investment in renewable energy at Roseisle distillery, the new £40m distillery that Diageo opened in Speyside last year, and a new £65m bioenergy plant at Cameron Bridge distillery in Fife.??

The Glenlossie bioenergy plant will use around 30,000 tonnes of draff per year, the by-product from around 12 million litres of Scotch whisky production. Diageo has 17 malt whisky distilleries on Speyside producing more than 50 million litres of spirit per year, and providing a plentiful supply of draff.??

The plant will produce steam which will be used in the operations on-site, including Glenlossie and Mannochmore distilleries and the on-site dark grains plant, which makes animal feed.

The bioenergy plant will make an important contribution to Diageo’s global environmental targets by reducing annual CO2 emissions by approximately 6,000 tonnes – the equivalent of taking around 1,600 family cars off the road.??

The £6m investment at Glenlossie comes on top of a capital investment plan which Diageo announced earlier this summer to invest around £20m in expanding its malt whisky distillation capacity in Speyside over the next couple of years.

The expansion in distillation will allow Diageo’s Speyside distilleries to produce an extra 10 million litres of alcohol per year.?? Diageo is also investing £3.2m in increasing capacity at the Glen Ord distillery near Inverness and £3.5m in increasing capacity at its Caol Ila distillery in Islay.??

Source: Diageo