Feasibility and owner's-representative advice for breweries and distilleries: generate power on site and put the waste heat into the mash and the vats instead of the sky. Advisory only, from an energy engineer who is also a Florida Certified General Contractor (CGC1528750). We do not build or install the system.
Combined heat and power, or cogeneration, makes electricity on site and captures the engine's waste heat for useful work. A brewery or distillery is a natural candidate because it needs hot water and process heat all the time. A feasibility study asks whether the heat will actually have somewhere to go, because heat with no use is only waste.
The study covers the plant's electric load profile and its heat demand, the vessels and processes that can take recovered heat, the fuel supply and its delivery, the path to utility interconnection, permitting, and an economic comparison with the status quo. It finishes with a written recommendation, including a clear no where the numbers do not work.
For generation at this scale the equipment family to understand is the reciprocating gas engine. Jenbacher (GE / INNIO) units are gas engines, not gas turbines. The two machines recover heat differently, so the engine type decides how the heat-recovery side is designed. Any brewery engineer will check this first, and so does the study.
The advisory work is vendor-neutral on the owner's side: define what the plant needs, screen the equipment against it, and compare proposals for what they include and leave out.
The economic case for CHP at a brewery or distillery is the heat. Recovered heat warms the vats, the brewing and distilling vessels, and the mash, displacing fuel that would otherwise be burned for that duty. The feasibility question is one of matching: when the engine runs, when the vessels need heat, how the heat is carried across, and what happens when the two do not line up.
Evaporative cooling, often called swamp cooling, is a separately developed design in this offer. It removes heat by evaporating water and can be considered next to a CHP study when cooling load is part of the picture in a hot climate. It is scoped as its own question and is not assumed to belong to every project.
Every plant starts from a different place. Some owners have only an idea, others hold a supplier quote and want a second read. Call to describe where yours stands, or use the short form at the top of this page. The scope is set per project and there is no fixed-price package. If the project moves ahead, the same advisor continues as owner's representative through selection and permitting.
The advisor does not build or install the system, does not sell equipment, and is not an EPC contractor. That separation is what keeps the advice independent. For fuel-fired plants at larger scale see biomass power plant consulting and waste-to-energy consulting.
Randolph Scott Bell holds a B.Sc. in Engineering from Aalborg University, Denmark, and built a Danish energy career across waste-to-energy and biomass boiler plants, heat-pump and ventilation product development, and insulation equipment. He sold waste-to-energy power plants worldwide for Babcock & Wilcox (Poland). In Florida he is a Certified General Contractor (CGC1528750), a RESNET Certified HERS Rater (RTIN 4516301) and a LEED Accredited Professional. He is fluent in English, Danish and German.
Cogeneration development work for a brewery is documented in his own archive; the client is not named. This page makes no claim to have built a power plant, and no plant, output, price or date is stated here.
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Call and describe the plant, its heat demand and where the idea stands.
It tests whether on-site generation plus heat recovery makes sense against the plant's real electric load and its real process heat demand. The study looks at the load profile, the heat sinks (mash tun, kettle, hot liquor, cleaning and distilling vessels), the available fuel supply, the utility interconnection path, permitting and a high-level economic comparison with buying power and heat separately. It ends with a go or no-go recommendation and the open questions a design team must close.
CHP, also called cogeneration, generates electricity on site and captures the engine's waste heat for useful work instead of rejecting it to the air. A brewery or distillery has a steady need for hot water and process heat, so the recovered heat displaces fuel that would otherwise be burned for that heat. That use of the heat is the whole economic case.
No. Jenbacher (GE / INNIO) units are reciprocating gas engines, not gas turbines. The two machines have different heat-recovery profiles, so the heat-recovery design and the feasibility screen differ. A feasibility study identifies the engine type first and sizes the heat-recovery side to match it.
Recovered heat is routed into the process: warming the mash and the brewing and distilling vats. Moving that heat from the engine to the vessels, and matching its timing to when the vessels need it, is a central design question in the study.
Evaporative cooling, sometimes called swamp cooling, removes heat by evaporating water. It is a separately developed design that can sit alongside a CHP study as a related option for cooling load. It is scoped as its own question, not assumed to be part of every CHP project.
It starts with a call about your plant, then a feasibility phase: load and heat-sink review, fuel and interconnection screen, permitting pathway and a written recommendation. If you proceed, the owner's-representative phase puts an advisor on your side while engineers, equipment suppliers and contractors are selected and while the work is permitted. The scope and fee are set per project; call (561) 779-3213 for a scoped conversation.
No. This is feasibility and owner's-representative advisory work. Randolph Scott Bell has not built a power plant, and the offer is not an EPC or installation contract. The advisor stays on the owner's side so that advice about equipment and contractors is independent.
Randolph Scott Bell holds a B.Sc. in Engineering from Aalborg University, Denmark, and had a Danish energy career in waste-to-energy and biomass boiler plants, heat-pump and ventilation product development and insulation equipment. He sold waste-to-energy power plants worldwide for Babcock & Wilcox (Poland). He is a RESNET Certified HERS Rater (RTIN 4516301), a LEED Accredited Professional and a Florida Certified General Contractor (CGC1528750).
Yes, as advisory work on this niche. A Florida Certified General Contractor licence is a state certification, and CHP feasibility is engineering judgment that is not tied to one county. Engagements are scoped per project.
There is no published price list. A short screening of one plant and a full feasibility study with owner's-representative support are different scopes. Call (561) 779-3213, describe the plant, and you will get a scoped answer.
It is the same discipline at a different scale: start from the real load and the real fuel, then select equipment, with the advisor on the owner's side. See the biomass power plant consulting page for fuel-fired plants and the owner's-representative page for oversight of a project once it is under way.