AMETHYST is a benchmarking and self-assessment tool for wineries and is available as a software tool in an Excel environment. This report serves as a user guide and as background material giving assumptions and information about the tool. The tool is based on the Californian model BEST winery . The BEST Winery tool has been developed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and Fetzer Vineyards, with financial support of the California Energy Commission (CEC).
The aim of AMETHYST is to enable a winery to compare its energy efficiency to a best practice winery, accounting for differences in product mix and other characteristics of the winery. The tool enables the user to evaluate the impact of implementing energy and water efficiency measures. The tool facilitates strategic planning of efficiency measures, based on the estimated impact of the measures, their costs and savings. Every winery will differ depending on the winemaking practices. This means that energy savings and costs of the measures included in AMETHYST may vary. The AMETHYST results should be interpreted as indications. Only a specialized audit and assessment of the winery may further improve upon the estimates.
The tool is based on benchmarking. Benchmarking can be a useful tool for understanding energy and water consumption patterns in an industrial facility. In designing an evaluation tool that compensates for production differences, it is necessary to take a look inside the production processes and account for the variousprocess steps used. AMETHYST is based on a process-step benchmarking approach. In this approach, the key process steps are identified and a benchmark performance is assigned to each step . The performance of your winery is then compared to a best or optimal winery, incorporating information about how each step is used by the winery. The performance of the winery is calculated and expressed as an Energy Intensity Index (EII) and a Water Intensity Index (WII). EII and WII are expressed relative to the benchmark.
AMETHYST also allows the user to evaluate 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.
Developed by Christina Galitsky, Ernst Worrell and Anthony Radspieler (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Patrick Healy and Susanne Zechiel (Fetzer Vineyards).
In this case the benchmark is based on best commercially available technology for each process step.
From this page you can download the project fact sheet and the presentation slides:
Prezentazione (Italian)