Green Power is the Way Forward

Molson’s Bristol HQ now using photovoltaic array and biomass boiler to cut CO2 emissions and produce power on site for the company.

Molson Group is doing its bit to tackle the threat of climate change with the introduction of a raft of new measures designed to reduce its carbon footprint and improve energy efficiency.

Over the last few months we have updated and rearranged the layout of the Avonmouth depot and have taken the opportunity to install an array of photovoltaic cells on the roof of our workshops so that we can generate our own electricity, reducing our reliance on power from the National Grid and helping to cut the amount of carbon dioxide we produce.

Even in the sometimes less than sunny location of Avonmouth the 77KWp installation will produce enough electricity to meet our requirement with extra being pushed through a local network to our neighbours, utilities company Wales and West and waste management specialist Smiths. Any surplus is then sold on to the National Grid to supplement UK electricity supply.

Installed by Crewkerne, Somerset based specialist Solar South West the installation is already producing power. Molson joint managing director Jonathan Wilson said: “The array is already running at almost exactly the capacity Solar South West said it would. It has a pay-back period of just over five years and a life expectancy of 25 years. We should be able to look forward to reduced energy costs and increased energy efficiency for many years to come.”

And the photovoltaics are not the only ‘green’ energy investment that has been made. The reorganised workshops are now being heated thanks to a boiler which uses chipped waste wood as a fuel.

The biomass boiler that has been installed by our friends at Exeter based XL-Group delivers an impressive 199KWp output that will keep our service staff and engineers warm during even the coldest of days.

The boiler arrived as a complete installation including fuel store and was plugged into the heating system, generating heat immediately.

Jonathan said: “It was an extremely efficient installation. Basically a plug and play system. We will be using recycled wood chip so if there is any that some of our customers need to get rid of we will accept it to help reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. The biomass boiler has a similar six year pay-back period to the photovoltaic array.”

And while the biomass boiler and photovoltaics will significantly reduce the Molson carbon footprint we are also introducing a change in the systems our service engineers use, helping to speed up the ordering and invoicing process and making it a more efficient paperless system. Jonathan said: “It is a system that runs throughout the job from first contact to completion. It will enable us to instruct our service engineers out in the field who can then feed information back to base.”