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05.04.2022

Anheuser-Busch InBev and EDF Renewables agree on cooperation for battery storage solution

Next ground­break­ing step towards sus­tain­ab­il­ity and energy trans­ition. Decent­ral­ised stor­age of elec­tri­city via bat­ter­ies: Anheuser-Busch InBev and EDF Renew­ables agree on ten-year cooper­a­tion in Germany

Bremen/​GER, April 5, 2022 — The stage is set: By 2040, the European busi­ness is to play a key role in Anheuser-Busch InBev achiev­ing net zero CO2 emis­sions across its entire value chain. In terms of renew­able elec­tri­city, the com­pany and its brew­er­ies are in an excel­lent pos­i­tion. Now comes anoth­er ground­break­ing build­ing block with­in the group’s sus­tain­ab­il­ity strategy: with the decent­ral­ised stor­age of elec­tri­city via bat­ter­ies. For this, Anheuser-Busch InBev has now signed a long-term ser­vice agree­ment with EDF Renew­ables for a peri­od of ten years, in which both com­pan­ies will cooper­ate in close coordin­a­tion in Germany.

The part­ner­ship with EDF Renew­ables has sev­er­al pos­it­ive aspects. Through the intern­al stor­age of energy, peaks in demand can be absorbed in the brew­er­ies, so that the power grid is relieved and the con­sump­tion costs of energy are reduced at the same time. EDF Renew­ables is build­ing large bat­tery stor­age facil­it­ies at four AB InBev sites in Ger­many. In Munich at Spaten-Löwen­bräu, at Hasser­öder in Werni­gerode and Beck­’s in Bre­men, the stor­age facil­it­ies have a capa­city of up to two mega­watts. In addi­tion, a stor­age facil­ity with a capa­city of 300 kilo­watts is planned for the Lower Rhine in Issum, where Diebels Alt is brewed, among oth­er things. Install­a­tion will take place at all four loc­a­tions before the end of the year. Com­mis­sion­ing of the bat­tery stor­age facil­it­ies is planned for the begin­ning of 2023.

EDF Renew­ables will be respons­ible for the plan­ning, install­a­tion, oper­a­tion and main­ten­ance of the bat­tery stor­age sys­tems. As the new bat­tery stor­ages reduce peak loads dur­ing high peak times of oper­a­tion, they provide a relief for the loc­al grid on site. In addi­tion, the high-per­form­ance stor­age sys­tems bal­ance out fluc­tu­at­ing yields from renew­able energy sources – both of which sup­port the energy transition.

“The imple­ment­a­tion of the stor­age sys­tems is anoth­er con­sist­ent step with­in our sus­tain­ab­il­ity strategy. Our ambi­tion is to use the decent­ral­ised bat­tery stor­age sys­tems in the brew­er­ies to cush­ion the high energy demand and make an import­ant con­tri­bu­tion to sta­bil­ising the power grids. At the same time, we can sig­ni­fic­antly reduce our elec­tri­city costs with the new tech­no­logy. A large part of these costs are due to the grid fees, which are sig­ni­fic­ant and con­tin­ue to rise, and which are based on the highest peak load of the year for com­pan­ies. With bat­tery stor­age, we reduce peak loads – and thus notice­ably bring down grid fees. Sus­tain­ab­il­ity and eco­nom­ic effi­ciency go hand in hand here,” says Fried Allers, com­pany spokes­man at Anheuser-Busch InBev. Accord­ing to Fried Allers, the brew­ery seg­ment faces spe­cial chal­lenges in terms of energy demand, as is the case in the entire food industry. After all, urgently needed cool­ing chains, for example, can­not simply be inter­rup­ted or bot­tling plants switched off.

“We see decent­ral­ised elec­tri­city stor­age as the fourth pil­lar of energy sup­ply in the age of renew­able ener­gies – along­side gen­er­a­tion, trans­port and con­sump­tion. Bat­tery stor­age sup­ports the sta­bil­isa­tion of the power grids, makes an import­ant con­tri­bu­tion to the secur­ity of sup­ply of all elec­tri­city con­sumers and ulti­mately con­trib­utes to the suc­cess of the energy trans­ition,” says Clotaire François, Man­aging Dir­ect­or, EDF Dis­trib­uted Solu­tions GmbH.

Anheuser-Busch InBev Germany

Anheuser-Busch InBev Ger­many (Beck­’s, Corona, Spaten), headquartered in Bre­men, is a sub­si­di­ary of the world’s lead­ing brew­ing group Anheuser-Busch InBev and is the second largest brew­ery group in the Ger­man beer mar­ket. The com­pany employs around 2,300 people at four loc­a­tions in Germany.

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