BEST-Winery is a software tool designed to evaluate the energy and water efficiency at a winery, and to help assess the environmental and financial impacts of potential improvement strategies. Given the necessary data, BEST-Winery calculates an energy intensity index (EII) and water intensity index (WII), performance indicators that compare the user's winery to a benchmark or reference facility, incorporating information about winery-specific process steps and characteristics affecting energy and water use and volumes processed by the winery. BEST Winery also allows the user to evaluate preliminary opportunities for energy and water efficiency improvement, to assess the impact on the performance of the facility, and to evaluate operation costs. This can help the user in developing a preliminary implementation plan for energy and water efficiency improvement.
As a spreadsheet-based tool, BEST-Winery is designed to be simple enough to be easily usable, yet sophisticated enough to provide credible results. One simple input page is followed by a more detailed optional input page, to allow the user to adapt to the sophistication she needs.
BEST-Winery is designed for wineries that produce most wines (except for Champagne-like wines) and that have the tanks and barrels inside a building. Wineries that operate large outdoor tanks cannot use BEST Winery to evaluate the performance of that winery.
BEST-Winery requires the following input data:
Additional data may be input on the optional data, or default values are given.
BEST Winery is designed for use in Excel using a PC with Windows 2000 or Windows XP.
After entering data please save BEST Winery with a different file name on your computer.
The Energy Intensity Index (EII) and Water Intensity Index (WII) show the performance of the actual winery relative to a benchmark winery that is based on the same winery using global best practice energy- and water-efficient technologies for each process step (as defined in BEST-Winery). The difference between the actual energy and water use and that of the reference or benchmark winery is calculated for each of the key process steps of the winery and then aggregated for the entire winery, calculated as an intensity per barrel or case of wine produced.
The EII and WII can be used to calculate the energy- or water-efficiency potential at the winery and can be used for evaluating winery progress in efficiency improvement. BEST Winery also provides an estimate of the potential for annual energy savings (both for electricity and fuel), energy costs savings, carbon dioxide (CO2) emission reduction, water, and water cost savings if the winery would perform at the same performance level as the benchmark winery.
Once the EII and WII have been calculated, BEST Winery can be used to preliminary evaluate the potential for energy and water efficiency improvement, through the included interactive menu of opportunities. The menu is broken into different energy and water uses, totaling over 100 opportunities:
Each of the sheets contains a menu of efficiency opportunities, including typical energy and/or water savings, capital costs and payback period for that measure. Potential applications can be filled in by the user to evaluate possible opportunities for the user's winery. Selected measures are added in a separate sheet to calculate a new potential EII and WII, as well as potential costs, savings, payback period and CO2 emission reduction potential.
For more information about BEST-Winery, please contact Christina Galitsky of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Tel: 510-486-5137; Fax: 510-486-6996).
DOWNLOAD BEST-Winery v2.0
(released May 2005; latest update June 2007) and the BEST-Winery Guidebook.