COMMERCIAL HEATING SYSTEMS
Heat pump cuts energy costs at brewery
A pioneering heat pump project at a Sussex brewery is helping it to radically reduce energy use and costs – promising to slash bills for wort boiling by more than 65%.
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ast year the family-owned Hepworth Brewery became the first in the UK to trial a new type of heat pump, developed
by Surbiton start-up Futraheat, to deliver low-carbon heat to the brewing process. Heat, delivered through high
temperature steam, is a vital component of brewing, and many other industrial processes, and is usually delivered by boilers running on gas or fuel oil. Unlike most heat pumps, which
deliver hot water up to around 80°C, the Futraheat Greensteam 300kW heat pump can produce steam up to 130°C. At Hepworth, the new system
recovers waste heat at 100°C, previously vented to atmosphere, and upgrades it to process steam between 120°C and 130°C. This steam is then resupplied to the brewing kettle, displacing the need for the fossil-fuel derived heat. Now, with months of operations under its belt, the heat pump has shown its potential to radically reduce the brewer’s reliance on a CO2- emitting oil boiler and allow it to switch much of its heat requirement for wort boiling to the electrically powered heat pump. Figures now published by The Carbon Trust and DESNZ – which part- funded the initiative – show the project has demonstrated: ● an 85.8% energy saving for the wort boiling process in the kettle compared to the existing fuel-oil boiler; ● a 91.2% reduction in CO2 equivalent; ● a 65.3% energy cost reduction; ● consistent steam output at 125°C, matching brewing specifications, with a high Coefficient of Performance (CoP ~ 6).
Up and running The project enabled the Greensteam heat pump to move from technology
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Hepworth Brewery was founded in 2001 in Horsham, West Sussex, and then moved to a purpose-built facility in Pulborough in 2016
The Futraheat Greensteam heat pump installed at the brewery
Andy Hepworth says: “Hepworth Brewery partnered with Futraheat to apply for the IEEA (UK Government) grant programme in support of our long-term roadmap to decarbonise operations. Following the successful adoption of solar PV for electricity, and lower-temperature heat pumps to recover heat-energy from cooling beer, the company needed to look for solutions to the more challenging and largest energy use on site – the oil- fired boiler used to produce steam for beer-wort boiling and other auxiliary processes such as cleaning. “The project has shown that through
offsetting the need for boiler steam, the efficiency of the heat pump technology can deliver the expected CO2 and cost savings over the long- term. The next stage will see Futraheat upgrade the heat pump’s compressor to a full production model, which will then be used more extensively on site and lead hopefully to a final, permanent Greensteam heat pump solution at Hepworth.”
Wider potential Futraheat believes their technology can be applied to many industries beyond brewing. Around two-thirds of all UK industrial
energy demand is for heat, and much of this can be delivered via high- temperature heat pumps. The key to the heat pump is a novel,
patented turbo compressor, known as TurboClaw, which sits at the heart of the Greensteam system and can boost temperatures by up to 60°C. Futraheat CEO Tom Taylor says: “Heat is a major component of a huge range of industrial processes, from pharmaceuticals to food and drink, and vast amounts of this is delivered by steam. Until recently, heat pumps have been both unaffordable and unable to deliver heat at the temperature that industry requires. This project demonstrates the technology can now be implemented within a brewery. We’re confident it can then be rolled out across a range of industries, in the UK and worldwide.” The project has been delivered in
Hepworth Brewery chairman Andy Hepworth (left) with Futraheat CEO Tom Taylor
readiness level TRL 5 to TRL 9, with over 70 hours of operation at kettle boiling conditions, equivalent to 35 brews and around 500,000 pints of beer production. Futraheat is now looking with the
brewery at how the Greensteam 330 heat pump could be integrated site-wide to maximise the offset of the fossil fuel
generated heat used at the brewery. The project is one of a number of initiatives being adopted by the brewer as part of its commitment to sustainability. Other measures include solar panels, a reed bed and a waste system which converts organic matter in wastewater into biomethane. Hepworth Brewery Chairman
partnership with Hepworth Brewery and the Department for Energy Strategy and Net Zero’s Industrial Energy Efficiency Accelerator (IEEA) programme, managed by the Carbon Trust. Futraheat secured £2million
investment in 2023 from backers including the Clean Growth Fund to develop and now plans to deploy their next-generation machine, which will incorporate two TurboClaw compressors to deliver heat up to
150°C. ■
www.futraheat.com
EIBI | FEBRUARY 2026
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