Lumenstream is committed to helping the world say yes to a sustainable future. That’s why, biweekly, we like to share the positive steps other businesses and countries are taking to have less of a footprint on the planet.
We think that’s news worth spreading.
Luckily, a lot of people are fighting the good fight.
This week we focus on the big multi-national company, Danone, setting ambitious global energy targets and Harmony Energy’s new battery storage site.
Danone Launches its Global Energy Excellence Programme
Danone is a leading global food and beverage company setting its sights on obtaining BCorp status by 2025. Off the back of their Danone Renew strategy, which sought to restore growth, it is now launching Danone Re-Fuel. This Global Energy Excellence Programme will of course focus on sustainability.
Danone has announced four targets:
- improve energy efficiency by 30% by 2025
- significant increase in use of biomass, biogas, solar and hydrogen
- all electricity will be from renewable energy, and half of all energy used will be from renewable energy by 2030
- a further reduction of a minimum 42% in scope 1 & 2 emissions by 2030
Vikram Agarwal, Chief Operations Officer of Danone, expressed the companies acknowledgement that without energy they could not make their health-focused products and that’s why they’re seeking to reduce their energy footprint across their sites globally.
“We will do this under three pillars – energy efficiency, investing in more energy
efficient process technology and upweighting renewable energy sources. It will make us more
sustainable, more agile, more cost efficient and more resilient, it also adds to how we deliver for
our customers and consumers and helps us reconnect performance and purpose, so marks further
progress on our strategy to Renew Danone.”~ Vikram Agarwal, Chief Operations Officer, Danone
It is great to see a multi-national up its sustainability game when they have already achieved big targets. To date, Danone has 6 factories around the world that are independently certified as carbon neutral. Across all its sites, they get 68.5% of their electricity from renewable sources. Overall, they’ve reduced their total energy consumption by 46% in the last 20 years.
Giant Battery Energy Storage Project by Harmony Energy is ‘Europe’s Largest’
Harmony Energy has just announced that it has successfully initiated the largest battery storage project by MWh in Europe. The Tesla 2-hour Megapack System can store up to 196MWh which is the equivalent of powering 300,000 homes with electricity for two hours.
Battery storage will become increasingly important in the UK, and other countries, in a bid to reduce the reliance on foreign gas imports and allows maximisation of the use of renewable energy.
What’s more notable is that this project was fast-tracked and wasn’t supposed to be live until March 2023. Quite an incredible feat given the current ‘very challenging geopolitical and global supply chain environment’. Those managing the Pillswood Project wanted to push ahead in order to support the National Grid in time for the predicted difficult winter.
The Harmony Energy Income Trust will be setting up a further 6 battery storage sites in the next year.
“Battery energy storage systems are essential to unlocking the full potential of renewable energy in the UK, and we hope this particular one highlights Yorkshire as a leader in green energy solutions.
These projects are not supported by taxpayer subsidy and will play a major role in contributing to the Net Zero transition, as well as ensuring the future security of the UK’s energy supply and reduced reliance on foreign gas imports.”
~ Peter Kavanagh, Director of Harmony Energy
It is both these stories in conjunction that highlight that there is an achievable way to Net Zero. Businesses need to actively aim for their targets. Countries need battery storage in order to deploy the renewable energy to commercial and domestic properties alike. Global energy targets cannot be met without storage.
Does your company have sustainability targets it needs to hit? Or do you just need to lower energy bills? Lumenstream may be able to help your business become more energy efficient. We did just that for CIMC Group- see their Project Breakdown and what they had to say.