Vault City Brewing are the UK’s largest dedicated sour beer producer. Since their start in 2018, they’ve brewed 450 different beers and use 200,000kg of fruit per year to put their modernised mark on traditional brewing with their line of fruit sours. Now, they’ve innovated even further by partnering with CleanEarth Energy to install 400 solar PV panels directly onto their rooftop.
Vault City moved to Edinburgh’s BioCampus in November of 2025, a site seven times the size of their previous property. This move presented the perfect opportunity to embed more sustainable initiatives into their new premises as part of their path to becoming a net zero brewery. The brewing industry is facing turbulence, as operational costs continue to climb. Non-electricity costs, or non-commodity costs, are stacking up on energy bills that are already subject to serious volatility. But for brewers like Vault City Brewing, energy has become part of the solution instead of the problem.
The journey to solar started with a study supported by Brew Resourceful, investigating 31 different sustainable technologies and creating an ROI calculator to indicate where efforts would be best placed. One of the 6 chosen technologies encompassed renewable energy and onsite generation, which would transform their carbon footprint. With a proven track record of providing renewable energy for breweries, our team at CleanEarth Energy then designed and installed a 222kWp roof-mounted system that will now generate an annual 175,400kWh of clean energy for their brewery.
“After evaluating 30+ technologies, Solar PV was a clear investment. Not only does it provide an immediate ROI on its own, the combination of solar PV and automation also allows for load shifting, which in a brewery is one of the biggest combined ROIs available” – Chris Lewington, Brew Resourceful
Vault City are currently on track to record a 38% increase in production volumes in 2026 and are targeting a £10m turnover by the end of next year. This increase in production is a jump from 11,900 HL to 14,424 HL, and as this production climbs Vault City can utilise their solar PV to mitigate the accompanying increase in energy costs. Their CleanEarth system will be saving an estimated £26,300 a year, which will compound to around £627,000 over the solar PV’s lifetime. Their solar generation will also have significant impacts on their carbon footprint, reducing their annual Scope 2 emissions by 33 tonnes. With the system’s 25-year lifespan, these reductions will ultimately amass to 800 tonnes of CO2e removed from their carbon footprint.
Owner and co-founder Steven Smith-Hay set a goal of self-sufficiency for Vault City Brewing, and their new solar array plays a big role as the team pursue electrical self-sufficiency through solar. For our team at CleanEarth, this marks another close collaboration with the brewing industry, helping innovators like Vault City Brewing revolutionise the way they power their growing operations.
Want to learn more about solar for brewing? Check out some of our other brewery projects here.
