00:06
>>Alexi: Today, I’m fortunate enough to
be in Fort Collins, Colorado,
00:09
home to the New
Belgium Brewing Company,
00:12
one of the largest and most successful
microbreweries in the United States.
00:15
New Belgium is unique not only because of
its high level of automation, but also because
00:19
of its commitments to green practices and
environmental stewardship.
00:23
Of course, New Belgium makes great beers,
like the popular “Fat Tire Amber Ale,”
00:28
but it does so operating in the most eco-friendly
ways possible. Let’s take a closer look
00:32
and see how New Belgium does it.
00:35
To handle its extensive automation needs,
New Belgium relies on Opto 22 SNAP PAC Systems.
00:41
The Opto hardware controls the facility's
brewing processes, water treatment facilities,
00:46
sustainability efforts, and a lot of the building
management.
00:49
To find out more, I had the opportunity to
sit down and talk with Igor Valuyev, the Chief
00:53
Electrical and Automation Engineer here at
New Belgium.
00:56
So first things first, where did the names “New Belgium” and “Fat Tire” come from?
01:00
>>Igor: As far as the name of our flagship
product, “Fat Tire”, our founder Jeff
01:05
Lebesch, used to be an avid home brewer. When
Jeff traveled through Europe, he traveled
01:11
through Belgium on a bicycle and fell in love
with Belgian beer culture. At that time mountain
01:17
biking wasn’t very prevalent in Europe so
people were asking him where did he get this
01:21
weird-looking bike. He came back home, brewed
a beer, and decided to commemorate his trip
01:28
and called his beer “Fat Tire,” so that
was a part of our culture, Belgian beers,
01:33
New Belgium Brewing Company.
01:35
>>Alexi: New Belgium’s founders created
a company list of core values and beliefs.
01:39
Producing world-class beer was one of them
of course, but high on the list was environmental
01:43
stewardship and honoring nature at every turn
of the business. And we’re not talking just
01:48
a few recycling bins here and there. We’re
talking about a company-wide dedication to
01:52
reducing their impact on the environment.
Igor, can you tell us a little bit about the
01:56
energy management practices that you have
here?
01:58
>>Igor: Everything that we do, everything
that we engineer around here, we try to keep
02:05
environment in mind. Just as an example, we’re
sitting at this table. This table is made
02:09
out of recycled wood, recycled tires, and
old FED EX tubes as legs. That’s just one
02:14
of the daily examples. But from the controls
and automation perspectives, we are proud
02:19
to be the first wind-powered brewery in the
United States. Whatever it doesn’t come
02:23
from the wind farm comes from our co-generation
unit. It’s also controlled by the Opto 22
02:28
system. Our brewing system is one of the most
efficient systems in the world. We are also
02:33
right now involved in a joint partnership
with our local utilities to work on load shedding.
02:40
That allowed the local utility
02:42
to save a lot of resources on building substations
throughout the area.
02:47
>>Alexi: Going green is of course good for
the environment, but it’s interesting to
02:50
see that it doesn’t have to be bad for the
bottom line. For example, you save over $3,000.00
02:54
a month in your electricity bills. Where do
you find that savings?
02:58
>>Igor: The process water treatment plant
is taking our waste stream, which is very
03:04
biologically intense, and those little bacteria
multiply, they eat up the biological particles
03:10
and produce methane, which in turn we collect
and with giant balloons on our property, and
03:17
burn this gas with our co-generation unit,
thus producing electricity and shaving our
03:21
peaks at the same time.
03:22
>>Alexi: Making beer seems like it’s a very
water intensive process as well. How have
03:27
you reduced your water consumption?
03:28
>>Igor: By being able to first of all monitor
our water consumption. And currently we are
03:34
at one barrel of beer to four barrels of water,
which is a very, very good number in our industry.
03:40
And automaton helps because we can make our
processes very precise. By doing so we can
03:47
make usage of our water more efficient.
03:49
>>Alexi: I understand you have over ten thousand
points of I/O. What types of things are you controlling?
03:53
>>Igor: Literally, with our ten thousand points
of I/O, we control everything throughout the
03:59
brewery. From the brewing processes to CIP’s,
to filtration processes to building processes.
04:05
And steam generation, our cold glycol generation,
our process water treatment facility and
04:12
our utilities, some of our IT processes interacting
with our UPS systems. The goal of
04:18
the system is to keep the temperatures, the
pressures, the flows, the times at a very
04:24
precise rate, as well as being able to adjust
recipes on the fly. There are numerous PID
04:30
loops throughout the facilities. There is
a lot of discreet control, a lot of pumps,
04:34
valves, sophisticated metering devices. We
also have some interfaces to our lab and quality
04:39
measurement system. So all of that together
comprises a successful brewery like we are.
04:45
>>Alexi: Right, and these are complex PID
loops. You’re often doing cascading PID loops?
04:49
>>Igor: Yes, there is certain devices that
require, they’re actually high-speed devices,
04:53
for example our “Variomill,” which allows
us first of all to make the product better
04:57
but also makes it safer, so as we’re milling, we're adding water, which basically we’re eliminating
05:03
dust, which makes our process much safer.
05:07
Our SCADA system, our HMI, is Wonderware InTouch
and the system kind of has a dual purpose.
05:12
One purpose is for the operators to interact
with it so we try to basically replicate whatever’s
05:17
in the real world, and that system is also
used for education to people who go on the tours here.
05:23
Currently, the Wonderware system is communicating
over Opto’s OPC Server, using Ethernet through
05:28
the PAC system. Pretty much, everything that
the control system has, is brought into the,
05:33
at least the Data Historian and stored in
something like a Microsoft SQL Server Database.
05:40
From there, this data is being consumed by
our ERP, by our Track and Trace system, by
05:45
our KPI modules, by the lab systems and all
those databases are integrated, so it’s
05:51
very cohesive system all together.
05:54
>>Alexi: I understand the bottling and packaging
system is controlled by a more traditional
05:58
PLC system. Do you have any plans to have
that system talk to your other systems in the facility?
06:04
>>Igor: As a matter of fact, we are currently
working on a project that will establish communications,
06:09
seamless communications, over Ethernet between
Rockwell, Allen Bradley system and Opto 22
06:16
PAC system. So far, we’ve done factory acceptance
tests on it and the results were very favorable
06:21
and we succeeded passing factory acceptance
tests for that particular project. Our packaging
06:27
hall is 100% Ethernet based. It’s also,
we are using a lot of wireless technologies
06:31
from Cisco that allows our maintenance personnel
to troubleshoot our systems without any wires.
06:38
More and more control systems are integrated
with their IT systems. And in our case they
06:41
are. They are truly integrated with our IT
systems all the way to the ERP system that we have.
06:46
>>Alexi: You recently finished a conversion
process where you converted legacy Opto 22
06:50
equipment to the newer SNAP PAC systems. Why
did you do that and how did the process go?
06:55
>>Igor: Opto hardware is very unique. First
of all we are using, you know pretty much
07:00
looking at New Belgium, you can look at Opto’s
history. We are using from the very first
07:04
generation of I/O that Opto 22 had offered,
the Optomux system, all the way to the most
07:11
cutting edge I/O that Opto’s offering right
now, the PAC System. And you can imagine that
07:16
everything in this brewery used to be controlled
by old legacy system, and doing that, doing
07:21
the conversion while the brewery is running
live is a very difficult task that we were
07:26
able to accomplish with very, very, minimal
disruptions to the process and production.
07:31
We saved a lot of money. We saved literally
millions of dollars by keeping our existing
07:35
legacy I/O and upgrading the brains if you
would, of the systems, the controllers of
07:40
the systems to the new control architecture.
07:43
>>Alexi: And that original Opto is still running?
07:45
>>Igor: Yeah, that original Opto is still
there. It’s still making us money. It’s
07:49
I’d like to thank New Belgium for brewing
great beer so we can enjoy and feel good about
07:54
drinking, and for providing refreshing examples
of corporate and environmental responsibility.
07:59
And thank you for watching. Be sure to visit
Opto22.com for more information and to check
08:04
out our other great Opto videos. Cheers!