Beer maker shifts to bio gas to reduce electricity bills

Kampala.

Beer maker, Nile Breweries has launched a plan that will see the company reduce its reliance on electricity.
The plan will see the company shift its operations to renewable energy thus reducing its electricity costs by more than Shs616m.
Speaking during an interview last week, Mr Onapito Ekomoloit, the Nile Breweries legal and corporate affairs director, said the biogas that the company produces, which is about 95,899NM monthly and 1,150,788NM annually, will be used instead of electricity.
According to Mr Onapito, the biogas project currently employs 22 people with 14 people directly working in the biogas plant while eight are operating the boiler plant.
The company, he said, is trying to move into sustainable production, a key requirement under the UN Sustainability Development Goals.
Under the goals, sustainable consumption and production patterns where companies are encouraged to adopt sustainable practices such as reducing greenhouse emissions.
Mr Fred Balikagira, the Nile Breweries BOP director, said they plan to invest in micro turbines, which will use biogas to generate power to run sections of the breweries.
“This will reduce our demand for electricity from the national grid thus reducing greenhouse effects,” he said.
Biogas is generated out of the effluent treatment process, which is already happening at both the brewer’s Jinja and Mbarara plants.