Georgia brewery looks to the sun to power its beer making

A Georgia brewery has installed solar panels and aims to reduce its energy consumption by 30%.

Athens-based Terrapin Beer Co. recently cut the ribbon on the project, The Athens Banner-Herald reported .

The project involves 720 solar panels on Terrapin’s roof and on its parking lots sunshades.

“At Terrapin, we want to be bigger than beer,” Terrapin president Dustin Watts said. “That is our main focus and goal. Beer is awesome. That’s what we do. We make it; we drink it; we enjoy it. Beer brings people together and, with that beverage, if we can inspire people to do good or do better things for the planet and for human beings in general, that’s our main goal.”

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The solar panel array is part of Terrapin’s larger sustainability campaign called Terraprint. Deeds Creative and Cherry Street Renewable Energy are two of the company’s partners on the overall effort.

“It’s a model that we’re really excited about and so fortunate to have someone champion us like this to say, ‘This is possible.’ The building environment of the future is going to incorporate renewable power into every building, but you have to have leadership for people to do it,” Cherry Street Energy CEO Michael Chanin said.

There’s now a TV screen in the tap room that shows customers how much solar energy is being used at any given time. Also, Cherry Street Energy will continue working on the solar panels.

“There’s still room on the roof. We’re going to increase the system size. We’re going to add battery storage and we’re going to capture more,” Chanin said.