Glenfiddich Distillery to fuel fleet on biogas made from whisky residue

Glenfiddich Distillery is to run its entire fleet on a biogas made of the residue from its whisky making process.

Parent company William Grant and Sons has announced that the production residues from its Glenfiddich Distillery in Dufftown, Moray, will be converted into an ultra-low carbon fuel gas which, it says, produces minimal carbon dioxide and other harmful emissions.

The company is in the process of installing fuelling stations at its depots and adapting its fleet of around 27 trucks to run on the low carbon fuel.

The technology required to convert the distillery waste into fuel was developed by William Grant and Sons. Traditionally, Glenfiddich sold spent grains left from the malting process for high-protein cattle feed. Now it is using a new conversion process it has developed which uses anaerobic digestion to break down the whisky residue to produce biogas. Liquid waste can also be used to create the fuel, allowing the distillery to recycle all its waste products.

Stuart Watts, William Grant and Sons’ distilleries director, said: “It has taken more than a decade for Glenfiddich to become the first distillery to process 100% of its waste residues on its own site, then to be the first to process those residues into biogas fuel to power its trucks.

“We are proud of these renewable energy breakthroughs in our industry as we scale up the de-carbonising benefits of this closed-loop process across our entire transport fleet.”

Watts added that the biogas reduces carbon dioxide by more than 95% and other greenhouse emissions almost entirely compared to diesel and other fossil fuels.

The company estimates each delivery lorry will displace up to 250 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year, equivalent to planting up to 4,000 trees or displacing natural gas from 112 households, he added.

William Grant and Sons said it plans to use the same technology across its entire transport fleet and make it available to the Scottish whisky industry to support the decarbonisation of transport in line with UK and Scottish governments’ net zero targets.