Berkeley Lab’s BEST Winery Tool Helps Reduce Energy and Water Costs

Berkeley, CA—California wineries now have an easy-to-use, computer-based tool and a handbook to help them reduce energy and water costs, thanks to researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who worked with Fetzer Vineyards to develop the computer-based tool.

BEST (Benchmarking and Energy and Water Savings Tool) Winery compares the performance of a target winery to a similar reference winery. BEST’s reference winery is based on a very efficient winery using state-of-the art but commercially available energy- and water-efficient technologies.

After evaluating how the target winery compares to the reference winery, the user can view the tool’s inventory of available efficient practices and technologies to select those measures that will save money, energy and water at the target winery. BEST Winery is available as an Excel spreadsheet that can be run on any PC operating Windows 2000 or higher.

The Public Interest Energy Research Program of the California Energy Commission supported development of the BEST Winery tool. BEST Winery applies to small to medium scale wineries. It is available for free to all California wineries.

California Wineries a Significant Part of State Economy

Why produce a tool targeted to wineries? The wine-making business is a significant one in the state. “California has 1,100 wineries that produce more than 500 million gallons per year, contributing about $33 billion to the Californian economy,” says Christina Galitsky, one of the report’s authors, and a researcher in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division. California produces about 90 percent of the total wine produced in the U.S. In 2000, California produced 565 million gallons of wine, representing almost 92 percent of all the wine produced in the United States.

“A lot of the electricity used in winemaking goes to refrigeration for cooling and cold storage,” Galitsky points out. “The rest is mainly compressed air, hot water or electricity for pumping and the bottling line motors. Cleaning barrels and equipment requires hot water, and so does heating red wine ferments and yeast generator tanks.” And, as with other commercial facilities, enclosed areas for storage and processes require lighting, and many such areas are electrically cooled.

“Energy and water costs have increased rapidly for wineries located in California,” she notes, “and this has made energy and water efficiency improvement an essential part of the business. Our experience is that more than any other industry, winemakers have started to implement sustainable practices in viniculture and in their wineries.”

Benchmarking facilities saves energy

In the benchmarking process, either the energy or water performance of an individual plant is compared to a plant that represents ‘standard’ or ‘optimal’ performance, or the energy or water performance of a number of plants are compared amongst each other.

Benchmarking in BEST Winery compares an individual winery to a similar hypothetical optimal winery using energy intensity (energy use per unit of output) as its unit of measurement. BEST Winery applies to a wide range of facilities and compensates for differences in production.

With the support of Pacific Gas & Electric, three free training sessions took place in May 2005 to train California wineries in the use of BEST Winery. PG&E also provided information on its financial support programs for improving energy efficiency in the state’s wineries.

 BEST-Winery Wins Flex Your Power Award

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) was awarded a Flex Your Power award for outstanding achievement in energy efficiency education and leadership for development of a computer-based Benchmarking and Energy and Water Savings Tool (BEST) for California's 1,100 wineries, in partnership with Fetzer Vineyards and with support from the California Energy Commission.

Visit the BEST-Winery web site

See also: Benchmarking