A north-east distillery is aiming to install a new boiler to slash its carbon footprint and minimise the amount of fuel deliveries made to the site.
Macduff Distillery, part of the Bacardi group, lodged the plans this month with Aberdeenshire Council.
It wants to demolish the facility’s existing oil-fed boiler house to create a biomass alternative which the firm hopes “will ensure a substantial reduction in overall carbon emissions from the facility”.
In a design statement, submitted alongside the application, Belfast firm Alan Bennett Architects said the new boiler would also allow the distillery to reduce the number of vehicles needed to take fuel deliveries to and from the facility on the east bank of the River Deveron.
The architects added: “The system has also been designed with a large fuel storage capacity, to ensure the plant can accommodate maximum delivery vehicle size and minimise the number of deliveries to the site, again reducing the carbon footprint of operations.
“The proposed wood pellet boiler and fuel source will in itself be beneficial to the environment and generate a certain level of ecological interest to the wider public and staff, and as the emissions are less harmful to the atmosphere and the actual fuel source is not coming from fossil fuels, this should be viewed as furthering biodiversity.”
Waste from the boiler, which is not recyclable, would be disposed off away from the site.
The local authority’s road, environmental health and flood and coast protection services have not raised any objections to the development.
However, Lauren Mackie, an engineer with the flood and coast protection service, has urged John Dewar & Sons, owners of the distillery, to follow Scottish planning policy.
In a letter to the planners, she said: “Where development is permitted, measures to protect against or manage flood risk will be required. Water-resistant materials and construction should be used where appropriate.”
Macduff Distillery was founded in 1958 by a syndicate under the name of Macduff Distillers Ltd.
It was acquired in 1980 by the Martini & Rossi corporation which in 1992 became part of the Bacardi group.