Kohei Yamada (1); (1) Suntory Beer Limited, Gunma, Japan

Technical Session 15: World Class Manufacturing
Tuesday, August 16  •  9:45–11:30 a.m.
Plaza Building, Concourse Level, Governor’s Square 15

Tonegawa brewery has carried out an expansion project to increase the capacity of beer production. This expansion project has enabled an increase in annual capacity from 3 million hL to 4 million hL. We have taken on challenges for reconstruction of the energy system to achieve ecofriendly and cost reduction. Through this activity, we try to realize a top runner factory as well as develop No. 1 energy-saving technologies. A new heat supply and recovery system consist of an improvement of heat recovery by the wort boiling and heat supply from co-generation and a boiler suitable for beer production. Conventional wort boiling system recovered hot water by heat exchange with vapor, but produced more hot water than our usage. We have developed a new wort boiling system that has a big inner heat exchanger and thermal vapor recompression system to achieve high heat energy efficiency. The recovered vapor is reused as energy for boiling to reduce the steam supply for boiling. The higher the vapor recompression efficiency achieved, the more heat energy is reduced. It aims at a high-efficiency energy circulation system, vapor recompression efficiency adjusted at a maximum. As a result of this improvement in the boiling system, vapor recompression efficiency reached over 50%. Improvement in the boiling system has significantly changed the energy balance of the entire plant because hot water for cleaning is reduced and the amount of steam for wort heating is also reduced. So the existing energy supply system needs to be reconstructed to minimize energy loss. The previous heat supply system of the Tonegawa brewery is made up of a water tube boiler and a gas engine co-generation system. Since the previous steam was high-temperature and high-pressure, boiler efficiency was not high. Furthermore, the temperature of the feed-water for the boiler was very high because of the high temperature of the recovery steam condensate, which led to high exhaust gas temperature, and boiler exhaust gas loss became very large. We have achieved a high efficiency boiler system by recovering heat from the exhaust gas and lowering the feed water temperature. The lower feed water temperature and reduction of steam pressure were done by maximizing the thermal efficiency of the beer production process. This activity achieved over 96% of boiler efficiency. In addition, we are also working on the effective utilization of the engine cooling water. We recover hot water from the gas engine and use it effectively for the absorption chiller and hot water recovery equipment.

Kohei Yamada graduated with a master’s of engineering from Nara Institute of Science and Technology. He joined Suntory Holdings Ltd. in April 2009 and started his career in the Engineering Department. He has been engaged in plant construction. He participated in the expansion project at Tonegawa brewery in 2012. He is responsible for energy saving and the update of wort preparation and power plant.