Celebrating Earth Day at Anderson Valley Brewing Company
An Earth Day Interview with President and CEO Kevin McGee
– When it comes to the cost to buy and install solar panels, how did you weigh the options to go toward doing this and seeing what sort of overall benefits both financially and in terms of conservation did you look at?
We are actually the World’s First Solar Powered Brewery and have been running a solar array since 2005 and that experience helped us focus on the scope of what we were trying to accomplish. We started with the priority being energy independence, fossil-fuel-free power backup, and redundancy capabilities. Then we worked through the practicalities and economics from there. Being a long-term operator of a solar array doesn’t qualify us to design and model a modern system but thankfully we didn’t have to. There are a number of good resources available to help that we were able access that basically did it for us. We eventually connected with Veckta and they helped us design and publish a RFP that was circulated to leading solar power developers and resulted in us comparing and evaluating 5 separate proposals, complete with technical information and financial and economic calculations and models. There are a number of ways to finance these projects and the developers are all very skilled at building out financial proformas on a proposed project. The tax and clean energy incentives out there make these systems far more affordable and financeable than most people would think. The path we are choosing is to take our current energy utility cost and structuring lease financing that allows us to basically freeze our utility costs and also to contribute those funds to our eventual ownership of the solar array and equipment. The end result being that we can become energy independent and resilient with 100% renewable energy that we generate on our property while capping our utility costs and eventually owning the system itself – all for the same amount of cash that we’re just paying out to PG&E today. That’s a pretty awesome outcome on a lot of levels.
– What kind of paperwork/number crunching is needed to help find usage for both power and water and starting to set goals to lower usage along with creating the needed infrastructure?
The analysis of both power and water usage doesn’t have to be that complicated until you drill down into things like how to design and optimize a power system. At its heart, the most important thing about both is to get a reliable handle on usage statistics, which also requires some effort into going into detail to normalize the data so there’s a good real-world understanding of what your needs are, as opposed to what you’re using.
In our case, water is actually easiest as we are a completely self contained system. We draw, treat and discharge 100% of our water usage here on the property and we have staff that are actively managing and monitoring all aspects of the system. Anderson Valley Brewing Company has been doing this since the mid-90s so we have a lot of both experience and data to understand our usage and very direct means to make adjustments and get feedback on water saving practices and initiatives and at this point we have it pretty well dialed-in.
With regards to power, we relied on professionals. As part of our solar expansion, the RFP process made our power usage data available to the developers and they worked up both historical and prospective power usage and need models. While we could have done some of this digging and analysis ourselves, the forward looking analysis is highly nuanced and we wouldn’t have gotten very far with projections compared to what the staff at the developers are able to do with their experience and perspective.
For goal setting two of the best available resources are the Brewers’ Association benchmarking data and asking friends at other breweries. Our goal setting was easy – we have the luxury of being pretty binary and we simply focus on achieving 100%, which has the added benefit of being easy to identify when you’ve hit your goal. We are targeting 100% of our power usage to be solar and generated on the property. With our water, as I mentioned above, for more than 25 years we have sourced, treated and returned 100% of our water within the brewery property so we’re just going to keep doing that (pretty hard to improve on).
– What sort of challenges come up front with taking a venture like solar power on? What are the biggest first steps and how has AVBC been able to grow this to complete independence?
Initially the main challenge in developing the solar expansion project was figuring out where to start and who to talk to. A portion of AVBC’s solar power system was installed before we purchased the brewery—in 2005 the previous owners began moving to solar, making us the World’s First ever Solar Powered Brewery. This was a big thing for our family when we were looking to purchase AVBC. We knew we wanted a socially conscious and sustainable business — to be able to build off of the footprint that had already been laid is a special opportunity. Over the past two years we have made it our commitment to expand our solar array to generate more than 100% of our power needs and to implement a “micro-grid” system. This allows us to eliminate all non-renewable energy sources, and makes us totally energy independent with a solar and battery powered back-up system. A huge bonus is this also enables us to contribute renewable power back to our community.
– What have you had to do to create being zero-impact for water usage?
The water system itself was built in the 1990s and has been running continuously since then – which is a really big deal when we think about the volume of water handled through it over that time. It was a big investment and an undertaking that requires a lot of space (having nearly 30 acres to work with is handy) and a number of skilled operators. The development of the system was very insightful and at the time they may not have really recognized how important it was. Initially, the program was probably driven by the dual goals of assuring a reliable source of high-quality brewing water and to be responsible in handling the waste water. The water composition at the brewery is nuanced and is a big contributor to the house style at Anderson Valley Brewing Company and specifically the balance we find in our beer. Making sure that water was available and clean would have been a real priority when the system was developed. The handling of the wastewater would have been a concern simply because of the remote location of the brewery and a desire to generally avoid contributing waste to the local community — what we would now look at in terms of reducing negative environmental impacts but at the time was probably just thought of as being a good neighbor.
As for how it works, it’s a fairly simple concept – draw, treat and return – but the actual operations and infrastructure are really developed and it’s a pretty unique program. We drilled 10 separate wells around the property which are cycled by a computerized switching system to feed a bank of storage tanks. At any given time we have a few hundred thousand gallons of water stored to buffer our operational usage and serve as a reserve. The water quality is analyzed and assessed and is then treated and drawn from the storage tanks to be used for both beer production and other normal uses around the brewery, including drinking and irrigation. Waste water is captured and sent to the main treatment system which incorporates a succession of three treatment ponds before being discharged into an engineered field that is also home to our merry band of anti-social goats. An exception being that we have a domestic-style septic system for appropriate waste streams. The whole process is impressive and also unexpectedly additive to our environment – we have a lot of local critters and birds living around the ponds and even have a local otter who takes up residence from time to time; all great indications that our team is doing it right.
The water is monitored and tested at every step along the way – including daily sensory evaluation by the brewers – and our lab staff who also manage the reporting to various government entities and handle related certifications and inspections. The end result is that unless water leaves the property as an ingredient in the beer it is treated and returned to the water table we draw it from and we effectively end up with a zero-impact water usage cycle while being able to directly monitor and assure the quality and composition of our brewing water.
– Why is it important to you that breweries across the country seek out ways like this to be more green and sustainable?
I think it’s imperative for every business on a lot of levels, but for breweries it’s particularly important because of the role breweries have had in building and supporting communities over the past 10,000 or so years. Because of this historical role as cultural hubs, breweries have the opportunity (and therefore the obligation) to lead by example and communicate the importance of these issues beyond our industry.
Beyond this, environmental stewardship and sustainable practices are important endeavors in their own right. There’s no shortage of data and scientific reporting on the environmental inflection point that our world is nearing and if the last two years has driven home any one message it’s that we’re all impacting each other on this planet. If we have the opportunity to improve things we need to take it and these practices are one way a brewery, or any business, can contribute.
– How does things like this help with the brewery’s story and in being able to use these aspects, either as a marketing opportunity or just connecting with consumers on different levels?
We think it’s important because it helps us communicate who we are and the kinds of things that are important to us. We like the idea that the history of sustainable practices at the brewery can provide some insight for consumers to understand us better and help drive a stronger connection.
For decades Anderson Valley Brewing Company has been quietly, and possibly unknowingly, operating one of the most environmentally responsible beer production facilities in the world. We were the first solar powered brewery on the planet – a fact that I only discovered a few months ago. The way we manage our water usage is unique and incredible but widely unknown. Other quiet practices include diverting all our brewing waste from landfills to feeding local cattle, replacing CO2 with N2 from our on-site nitrogen generator and transitioning to 100% endlessly recyclable and plastic-free packaging. These are all things that the brewery is already doing, and in some cases has been doing for decades, not because it was good marketing or a good image but because it was the right thing to do.
My family bought the brewery in 2019 because the beer has been consistently incredible for 35 years but also because of its history of sustainable and responsible operating practices. We are 100% family owned and operated and what the brewery does and how it behaves directly reflects on us individually. We are looking at the brewery as a multi-generational part of our family and we are making decisions and operating it with that perspective. The fact that the brewery has been under-the-radar while quite literally leading the world in environmental brewing practices speaks to the core of who the brewery is, its personality and authenticity. It’s a legacy that my family is proud to continue and proud to be a part of.
