Compañía Cervecera de Nicaragua (CCN), is embarking on an environmental initiative that will see the brewery harvest green energy from wastewater to replace fossil fuels while achieving cleaner effluent.
CCN, founded in 1926, is Nicaragua’s largest brewery. One of its beers—the Toña, launched in 1975—has more than 85% market share in Nicaragua and is exported to the U.S. Toña has become a national symbol, featuring the volcano San Cristobal and the railway to the sugar mill of San Antonio on its label.
The company commenced this year the installation of a brand new GWE wastewater treatment and biogas reuse plant at its brewery in Managua.
At CCN, Global Water Eng. (GWE) has designed and installed an anaerobic reactor incorporating ANUBIX-B technology for 13 tons of chemical oxygen demand throughout per day, as well as a biogas reuse system in one of CCN’s boilers, which allows CCN to save up to 3,000 kg of fuel oil per day. A revamp of the plant’s aerobic and a complete sludge dewatering systems have also been included in the current project.
The distance of almost 1 km between the wastewater treatment plant and the boiler room has represented an additional challenge, which was successfully tackled by using GWE’s drying system, GASODRIX. This allowed the client to use an existing pipeline at the plant without intermediate draining points. The plant is currently being commissioned for service.
The CCN project is GWE’s second in Nicaragua, after two large ANAMIX-M digesters fed on molasses vinasse which have been installed at the plant of the famous rum Flor de Caña.