General Motors (GM) has signed a power purchase contract with EDP Renovaveis subsidiary EDP Renewables North America to power the company’s Arlington assembly plant.
The plant manufactures over 1,200 vehicles in a day, including Chevrolet Suburban and Tahoe; GMC Yukon and Yukon XL; and Cadillac Escalade and Escalade ESV.
Under the 14-year deal, GM will receive 115MKW hours of renewable energy to the Arlington facility, which will be enough to produce over half of the plant’s annual vehicle production.
Currently, EDP is developing a wind farm, which has a capacity of 250MW in Edinburg, Texas and GM will receive 30MW energy from the under-development plant to power the Arlington facility.
In the plant 15 of the wind farm’s 261ft tall turbines will generate the energy for GM.
GM’s Arlington assembly plant will soon be able to build up to 125,000 trucks a year using wind power from turbines whose blades span the length of a football field in diameter.
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By GlobalDataGM global manufacturing executive vice-president Jim DeLuca said: "Our investment is helping accelerate the proliferation of clean energy in Texas and the use of wind as a reliable, renewable source of energy.
"Our sustainable manufacturing mindset benefits the communities in which we operate across the globe."
In the fourth quarter of next year, Arlington expects to use the clean energy and will be able to save $2.8m in the energy expenditure per year.
The use of clean energy will further enable GM to reduce over 1mt of CO2 emission.
Arlington assembly has been able to reduce the consumption of energy in its operations by 10% in five years.
The company plans to power three of its Mexico-based facilities with wind energy by the first quarter of next year and will be able to surpass its promise to use 125MW of renewable energy by 2020. So far, the company has saved $80m through using renewable energy in its operations.
Image: General Motors’ Arlington Assembly plant will soon be able to build up to 125,000 trucks a year using wind power from turbines whose blades span the length of a football field in diameter. Photo: courtesy of General Motors
