Exergy3 has commissioned a decarbonised heat project at Annandale Distillery near Dumfries, using thermal energy storage and low- and zero-carbon electricity to supply process heat for whisky production. The project has been delivered with Annandale Distillery and Cochran Ltd, with support from the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero through its Net Zero Innovation Portfolio.
Exergy3’s system converts renewable electricity into stored thermal energy and then discharges hot air at temperatures suited to industrial processes. The wider technology can deliver heat up to 1,200°C, while the Annandale installation supplies hot air at up to 530°C. That hot air is fed into a Cochran boiler, which converts it into steam for use in the distilling process.
The installation is designed to decarbonise one of the more difficult parts of industrial production: high-temperature process heat. At Annandale, three Exergy3 modules provide 30MWh of thermal storage and supply hot air to a 3MW boiler producing green steam at 10 bar pressure.
Prof. David Thomson, cofounder of Annandale Distillery, said: “Heat-intensive industries like ours are under increasing pressure to decarbonise, and solutions that can deliver high-temperature heat without fossil fuels have been hard to find.”
Exergy3 says the system can also make use of renewable electricity that would otherwise be curtailed. In Scotland, where wind generation is abundant but grid balancing remains costly, that creates a route for surplus renewable power to be stored and used later as industrial heat. The company says the modular system is compact, can be installed quickly, and can run alongside existing heat systems while sites work within current grid constraints.
The project forms part of Annandale Distillery’s wider decarbonisation programme, which also includes reducing transport miles and examining alternative uses for waste streams such as spent grain and carbon dioxide. More information is available on Exergy3’s Annandale project page.
