South African Breweries (SAB) is banking on energy to reduce its carbon footprint. The South African brewery giant announced the signing of a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Bio2Watt. The South African company, which is entirely owned by women, is committed to selling electricity generated from agricultural waste.
Bio2Watt is currently building a plant at Morester’s Vyvlei Dairy farm, whose main business is supplying milk to the South African food group Clover. The plant will handle the waste produced by the 7,000 cows on the dairy farm. The cow dung will be mixed with other organic waste collected in the municipality of Malmesbury to produce biogas. The heat from the combustion of this gas will be recovered to generate electricity.
A 4.8 MW biogas plant
The Bio2Watt biogas plant will have a capacity of 4.8 MW. Cape Dairy Project, the ad hoc company set up to develop the project, has chosen the Canadian company Anaergia to set up the future facilities. The livestock waste to biogas and electricity project is being developed in partnership with Norfund of Norway and Public Investment Corporation (PIC), a South African public entity.
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SAB’s participation in the success of this project is part of its Anheuser-Busch InBev holding company’s 2025 sustainability goals for climate action. The Belgian-Brazilian brewery group wants to power itself with electricity generated 100% from renewable sources by 2025. “We also believe it is our duty to relieve the pressure on the national power grid. Through this partnership, we’re proud to make progress on both fronts as we move toward a cleaner, greener, more self-sustaining future,” says Kyle Day, SAB’s director of purchasing.
The brewing company led by Richard Rivett-Carnac has already achieved 23 percent contracted renewable electricity. That electricity is generated from solar and biogas. Anheuser-Busch InBev, SAB’s parent company, aims to reduce CO2 emissions by 25% across its value chain by 2030. It is the world’s largest brewer by volume of beer brewed, with revenues of over $52 billion in 2019.
Jean Marie Takouleu