Tooheys sips ongoing financial savings through strategic energy management

December 2020

An Australian institution since 1869, Tooheys Brewery supplies around 250 million litres of beer to Australians each year, making up the lion’s share of parent company Lion’s annual 600 million litres. Producing that much beer across Lion’s five major breweries guzzle a lot of energy. To tackle this, Lion has implemented strategic energy management practices.

With the support of expert advice facilitated by the NSW Government, and clear leadership from the executive team, Lion further improved its energy management systems at its Tooheys Brewery in Lidcombe, New South Wales.

Lion already had some relatively robust energy management practices, such as strong energy policies, energy saving targets against production (GJ/hectolitre), and energy monitoring systems at some sites like Tooheys. However, there was room for improvement, including the development of:

• Online energy e-learning modules to help employees understand energy consumption at the brewery and learn ways to improve energy performance;

• Energy models to provide the site with quantitative tools to track daily energy consumption against targets, predict future energy consumption and detect when energy consumption drifts outside of expected levels; and

• An energy management guide for employees to learn about Lion’s energy management practices and support adherence and continuous improvement.

After making these improvements in 2020, it is expected that Tooheys will achieve ongoing energy spend reductions of three to five per cent each year.

Find the case study on page 15 of Navigating dynamic energy landscape: a briefing for manufacturers.