We pretty sure that the expression “drunk on power” was never meant to be taken this literally. Recently the Rothes consortium of whisky and scotch distillers announced that they have partnered with Helius Enery to install a power plant fueled by none other than, well, whisky by-products! We think that we can drink to that.
A joint venture between Helius Energy and The Combination of Rothes Distillers (which include amongst their members the Edrington Group and Chivas Brothers), the power generation plant will cost around 24 million pounds and will be operational in around two years. It will be located at a distillery in the Moray Council area of Scotland.
To be fair, the project is a biomass CHP plant (combined heat and power), which in and of itself would not be such a big deal, except for the fuel. You see, Instead of wood, the plant will use a combination of draff and pot ale from the distillery to provide an impressive 7.2 megawatts of electricity – enough power for 9,000 homes. The plant will also provide heating and electricity for the distillery, with the rest being exported to the grid. The only thing left for us to say on this topic is, well, cheers!
Maybe they can cut a deal with the recently spun- off Land Rover/Jaguar and come up with a hooch-powered hybrid-electric. “Oh, you take the highroad an I’ll take the lowroad, an I’ll get to Scotland afore ye…”