Old Woodward looks to New Belgium for project

FORT COLLINS – What do ultra-progressive New Belgium Brewing Co. and ultra-traditional Woodward Governor Co. have in common?

Operating in Fort Collins might seem the only link between the companies, but a mind toward energy efficiency and emission reduction could join the two in a partnership.

New Belgium has received acclaim for its environmentally friendly beer-making systems since it opened in 1995. The company installed its own water treatment facility in 2002. The bacteria used in the treatment process release methane, which is collected and piped back to the brewery, where it is used to run an engine that produces electricity and heats water for the brewing process.

Woodward, founded in 1870, is often perceived as a more traditional company. However, its focus on efficiency and emissions reduction began in earnest about 20 years ago, according to Paul Johnson, director of marketing communications.

Woodward approached New Belgium last spring to discuss a potential partnership.

“We will supply the total control system on the engine to make it as fuel-efficient as possible and to reduce emissions as much as possible,” Johnson said.

The engine has been producing energy for the brewery for a couple of years now. New Belgium has even arranged to sell excess energy back to the city of Fort Collins utilities department. It isn’t often that there is excess energy, but the deal allows New Belgium’s engine to run at full capacity all the time, no matter what the energy demand.

The engine has been running at full capacity, but not necessarily at full efficiency. Fred Porter, environmental engineer for New Belgium, explained that when the quality of the methane fluctuates with the composition of the wastewater, the engine doesn’t run as efficiently.

“It’s been sporadic and we’ve had some problems,” he said.

But most of those problems were solved when the brewery finished an expansion of the wastewater facility this summer. The expansion improved on the processes used to treat the water, resulting in more consistent biofuel quality.

The brewery strives to run the engine on biogas only; however, fluctuations in gas quality have required that the engine run on natural gas occasionally. To switch between the two with New Belgium’s current equipment requires a manual shutdown of the system.

Seamless operation

“The Woodward Governor equipment will allow us to run methane and natural gas (seamlessly),” Porter said.

New Belgium is still deciding if it would like to move forward with the project, said chief operating officer Jennifer Orgolini. The brewery is looking at the complexity of integrating Woodward’s system with that of the manufacturer of its existing system before officially committing to the deal.

Guascor, the Spanish company that manufactures the engine component of the system, regularly works with Woodward and has pledged to assist in the installation.

The project will benefit Woodward by giving it a nearby demonstration site for some new technology.

“There are one or two devices that are brand-new to the marketplace,” Johnson said. “We’re using this as a demonstration.”

One of the new devices that could be installed on New Belgium’s engine is an upgraded master electronics module, which controls the main engine unit.

The product has been on the market for 10 years without any significant changes. Ten years is essentially a lifetime in the microprocessor world – think about the personal computers of 1996 – and Woodward has updated it with a new, more powerful microprocessor control.

The New Belgium project aside, Woodward has already put its stamp on the region’s clean energy technologies.

In October, the company donated $150,000 to install an engine donated by Caterpillar Inc. at the Colorado State University Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory. The donations, coupled with continued partnership between the companies and the university, formed the Distributed Power Generation Research Center.

The company is working with university researchers and students on its next generation of engine controls, according to Johnson.

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