Bunnahabhain Whisky Distillery, Islay

Like most island distilleries who rely on medium or light oil to fuel their boilers, CVH were looking for a way to decarbonise their distillation process at their Islay distillery.  They were also interested to see if draff could become fuel for their process.

Working closely with [AgroForst] and AMP Clean Energy Services, Dallol have delivered a funded project that has reduced the distillery’s carbon footprint by 95%, saving 5500 tonnes of carbon per annum.  The heating process now uses 90% of the draff output from the distillery, vastly reducing further Scope 3 carbon emissions.

The energy centre that houses the new 5500kW biomass boiler was designed so that the roof-line mimics the silhouette of the distant ‘Paps of Jura’.  The system uses a double Turbo-Challenger which provides a secondary and tertiary combustion chamber to ensure total burnout of any combustion gases, probably making this plant the cleanest large biomass boiler in the UK so far.

Although owned and funded by AMP Clean Energy Services, the team at Dallol were responsible for the entire project development, from building consent and environmental permitting, through project delivery and commissioning.  Dallol are retained by AMP to both operate & maintain the plant as well as provide the fuel.

The plant is initially fuelled by low value softwood logs from the West Coast of Scotland mixed with a dewatered draff fuel.   Dallol have secured felling rights to forestry on Islay and this material will shortly replace the imported wood fuel.

Draff – the by-product left over after malted barley and hot water have been mixed in the mash tun and the liquid ‘beer’ drawn off for fermentation in the wash-backs.  (Also known as distiller’s spent grain)