USA: Tesla to help Sierra Nevada to brew eco-friendly beer

Tesla Motors, the pioneer in electro mobility, is helping Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., a pioneer in craft brewing, to produce eco-friendly beer. The number 3 craft brewer by sales volume in the United States has installed a 1MWh Tesla Powerpack battery system at its Chico, California facility to level out peaks and troughs of electrical power usage during the beer-making process.

Sierra Nevada has a 0,751-panel, two-megawatt solar installation — the largest owned by any US brewery — and a two megawatt microturbine to produce around 20 percent of its yearly electricity use. But the problem was so far that the electricity is not always produced at the time when it was needed. The new batteries installed in Chico can now output up to 500 kilowatts of power.

Ken Grossman, the founder and CEO of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., does not only love good beers but has always put an eye on the environmental impact of his business.  “We brew the beers we like to drink with a strict eye toward the environment. It’s no secret that beer production is demanding on natural resources, so wherever we can lessen or eliminate our impact, we’ll make that investment,” he said in an interview in 2013.

It does not come to a surprise that Grossman has chosen Tesla as his new partner for electro solutions. In addition to building electro-cars and the batteries needed for the cars, Tesla has also developed stationary power products for utilities, homes, and commercial applications. Powerpacks for utilities and businesses and Powerwalls for residiential use are assembled at Tesla’s Gigafactory in Nevada.

Tesla expects other breweries to follow Sierra Nevada’s example as the company has sold already another power storage system to Maui Brewing Co. in Hawaii.

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