Fig. 6 shows the effect of the sugar conversion on the energy consumption of the process for concentrated syrup containing 30% sugar content. The use of more tolerant yeasts to stress conditions that enhance the conversion of sugars and fermentation efficiency under conditions VHG, to values close to 90%, would reduce energy consumption of the process. An improvement of the sugar con- version from 60% to 90% would reduce the total energy consumed 25%. However, the energy consumption was still higher than the energy consumed for a process with less concentrated medium such as 14% sugar content (Fig. 6, Table 5) Therefore, it can be concluded that even with improved conversion of sugars under conditions VHG, the reduction in energy consumption during product recovery achieved by such conditions is not as significant