Greenly perfected: Energy-efficient technology launches at McKinney brewery

Perfectly Green is a go in McKinney.

The corporation, which makes technology that combines multiple energy sources for constant, on-site power, pumped on its first unit this week at Franconia Brewery.

Using solar rays, natural gas and waste vegetable oil, the McKinney brewery will power itself on the spot - and add to its already green facility.

"I've always wanted to do something like this, it's just taken longer to establish it," said Dennis Wehrmann, Franconia brewmaster. "Being [Perfectly Green's] first customer is really exciting for us, because we can help a new, growing business and now have the advantage of it to produce all green power. It's a dream of mine."

As a supplemental energy source, the Intelligent Energy Allocation (IEA) unit - a fairly unassuming attachment to Franconia's outer west wall - will blend waste vegetable oil, natural gas and solar PV that's brought in through a solar-panel-topped car port to produce electricity for the facility.

Wehrmann said he grew up in Germany "when the country got environment-friendly, especially in the brewing process," and thus designed Franconia as a "state-of-the-art energy-efficient building." Before this week, it already used up to 85 percent of its water, was completely trash-free, and gives its spent grain and yeast to local farms that convert it to cattle feed, he said.

"Now, having this [unit] on our property, being able to produce our own energy, it's the last piece to the puzzle," he added.

Perfectly Green Corporation, stationed nearby in east McKinney, first unveiled its innovative technology at a ribbon-cutting in December, when city and local business officials got a peek into its process and design.

Other energy sources, like those powered by sun or wind, rely on certain weather and times of day for efficiency. Depending on the building to which it's attached, a Perfectly Green unit uses a combination of such sources for cheaper, more sustainable production.

"With sun or wind (-powered energy) and those technologies, the problem is it's never running all the time," said John Monteiro, Perfectly Green chief operating officer, in December. "What our unit does is blend all those different fuel sources so it's a constant flow of energy."

Perfectly Green covers the equipment and installation costs, and in return, users like Franconia sign a power purchase agreement through which they'll pay Perfectly Green up to 20 percent less than the market price for power.

"Dennis does a really good job of capturing all of his waste water, and he runs a dumpster-free facility here," said Eric Barger, Perfectly Green co-founder and CEO. "We're going to assist in using the last drop of water they have, and utilize the last bit of waste."

Barger said at Wednesday's launch that Franconia will soon add a bottling center, for which Perfectly Green will provide all the hot water. The brewery's energy-saving partner is looking to add a few more components and "really use 100 percent of the energy," he said.

"I call it Phase I of the whole concept," Wehrmann said of the addition. "We're using the solar, natural gas and vegetable oil, but we'll get more solar and thermal panels out there; and we'll get an energy generator out for the spent grain, so we can pretty much burn it and convert that into energy, as well."

Franconia's experience with "perfectly green" energy may be just beginning, but the energy has been several years in the making for its creator. Perfectly Green spent about three years in research and development, before the McKinney Economic Development Corporation jumpstarted production of the concept through its emerging technologies fund.

"This is the type of project that we are really looking for in McKinney as we bring new companies to our city," Mayor Brian Loughmiller said in December. "They're bringing new technologies not just to McKinney, but to the world."

Monteiro said Perfectly Green is in discussions with the city and with other area businesses about deploying the technology at more locations, to help such host entities save on their energy bills and share on revenue created when the units return power back to the local grid as demand dictates.

"We've had an explosion of intents and headings to contract," Barger said. "We'll deploy a lot of these in the next few years in McKinney, around the state and as far away as New Jersey."

Like it did in installing the unit at the brewery, Perfectly Green will go over interested facilities' blueprints and determine their different opportunities for generating power. Whoever uses the technology will be as close to perfectly green as they can get.

"It's the beginning of many," said Tamara Stasny, Perfectly Green executive vice president. "Dennis saw the vision our technology has; he understood it and he saw the benefits. He wanted to get it right away and take advantage."

For more on this story, visit http://www.scntx.com/articles/2012/12/19/mckinney_courier-gazette/news/8874.txt.

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