AB Inbev’s brewery in Hoegaarden purifies its wastewater by means of fermentation in a bioreactor. That process requires heat and produces biogas (mostly greenhouse gases) as a by-product. Under normal circumstances, the biogas is flared without further use.
In 2004, we installed Flanders’ very first biogas-based CHP. The plant supplied power and heat for the water treatment plant. In 2014, it was decided to upgrade the CHP, which now produces 20% more energy, amounting to 195 kilowatts.
Our cooperation with AB Inbev started in 2002 with a first energy audit in the then brewery Bellevue. Since then, this cooperation has only grown. Besides building and financing the biogas CHP in Hoegaarden, we also did the engineering and project management for the construction of a CHP plant in the Leuven brewery. And the works for a new biogas CHP in the Jupille brewery have also started in the meantime.
Bart Simonet, Plant Manager at AB Inbev in Hoegaarden, talks about the collaboration with Luminus Solutions.