Focused on the production of products for humans and animals from brewers’ yeast, Leiber is investing around EUR 14 million (USD 13.6 million) in a new biomass power plant whose construction started in October 2022. The company uses heat for drying the brewers’ yeast in spray towers and extracting ingredients.
Engter’s plant, which traditionally uses gas to produce heat, will use renewable energy from a new biomass power plant that will be fueled by waste wood from wood processing facilities, or pruned material from landscape conservation. Annually, Leiber will check the effects of the new energy plant which will be recorded to guarantee transparency as part of the company’s sustainability strategy.
“With the biomass power plant in Engter, we want to use waste wood to replace around 70% of the gas previously required for our production. Here, we are pursuing the goal of manufacturing our products not only in a sustainable way but also in a climate-neutral way in the future,” said Bernd Schmidt-Ankum, managing director at Leiber.
“By the end of 2023, the new biomass power plant should be supplying around half of the gas and electrical energy. This will allow us to save up to 10,000 tonnes of CO2 per year,” said Oliver Beckmann, director technology & production. “This will bring us closer to our goal of using energy even more efficiently and manufacturing Leiber’s products as sustainably and climate-neutrally as possible.”
The boiler plant of the new biomass power plant will be constructed on a footprint of 760 square meters. The wood storage facility covers an area of 570 square meters and can store up to 2,500 cubic meters of waste wood. A maximum of three tonnes of wood will be burnt per hour, equating to around 15,000 tonnes per year.
In September, Leiber inaugurated a completely new drying plant for brewers’ yeast in Poland and celebrated 20 years of entrepreneurial involvement in the country.
