Over the past decade, the VinWizard control system has been shown at prestige wine shows in America, Argentina, Australia, South Africa and Spain.
After these shows, the team visits dozens of wineries in each respective country. They talk to numerous winemakers and have seen more variations on winery production techniques than you would think possible.
With close to 100 international installations behind them, the VinWizard team has experienced both the very good, and the very bad in terms of winery design. This makes the company behind VinWizard, Wine Technology Marlborough (WTM), well qualified to speak on just where New Zealand stands in terms of winery production efficiency.
Managing director and product developer Dave Gill says the hottest international topics currently centre around carbon footprints and power management. New Zealand and Australia tend to be leading the field in terms of winery technology and the world recognises this. Until recently however, we were well short of having showcase “green” wineries.
Most New Zealand wineries have equipment and systems that operate in isolation rather than as a totally integrated operation. This is the same all around the world. VinWizard’s philosophy is to drive the winery based on what is happening inside the tanks. This is where an intelligent tank control system comes in.
Tank temperature control is at the heart of the VinWizard system. Through integration to winery management databases or direct winemaker input, the system knows what wine is in each tank and what status that tank is in. The system knows if the tank is calling for coolant and what the set-point is. Armed with this information we can run the refrigeration plant only to the capacity required and only when required. Running chiller units during peak cost winter daytime periods is an absolute waste of money, says Mr Gill.
The system lets the winemaker prioritise each tank according to status. This allows the implementation of initiatives such as night cooling, where the plant is run at night time and energy is stored in the tanks for release during the day. At a pre-set time, tanks of a lower priority are set to a degree or two below the current setpoint. This has the effect of ramping the refrigeration system up to full capacity during off-peak power periods. In the morning the tanks are set to the same amount above the setpoint which means little or no refrigeration is required during the peak daytime hours
This is just one of the many groundbreaking initiatives being introduced. Others include cold stabilization mode, coolant set-point control, coolant pump control, must chilling control, peak load management and barrel hall air exchange to name a few. Such measures can easily save a winery 30-50 per cent power usage.
Not all measures are suitable for every winery. It is vital to understand what the winemaker wants to achieve from a winemaking perspective. An example of industry generic solutions being pushed on the wine industry is load-shedding. Maximum power is required for a very short time of the year. Just ask a winemaker what can be turned off as the grapes are pouring in?
The VinWizard team suggest the real savings can be achieved outside the vintage period when power costs are high, wine status allows more flexible cooling schedules and the refrigeration infrastructure can work in harmony with cooler air temperatures.
Wineries such as Terravant in California and Yealands in the Awatere Valley are just two of the high-profile wineries currently installing VinWizard and the associated power management modules.
What VinWizard aims to do is present as much relevant information to the winemaker as possible. The system collects data from every imaginable component in the winery and presents it in a meaningful and appealing manner. The winemaker can then choose if events are automated such as turning off cooling to low priority tanks when a power usage threshold is reached. Alternatively winemakers may simply be happy knowing what is happening in real time and make their own decisions.