General Motors has entered into a power purchase agreement with Enel Green Power to provide wind electricity for one of its manufacturing facilities in Mexico.
Enel Green Power will be constructing a major wind farm in Palo Alto, California, in the second quarter of this year.
Seventeen 2-MW wind turbines installed by Enel Green Power at the site will supply electricity to the Toluca Complex owned by GM in Mexico.
The Toluca Complex will use 75 percent of the supplied power and the remaining power will be given to Silao, San Luis Potosi and Ramos Arizpe facilities.
34 MW of wind power is sufficient to achieve the renewable energy target four years earlier.
Through the addition of wind power, 12 percent of its energy consumption will come from renewable sources, increasing from a current 9 percent in North American facilities.
It is estimated that, around fifty percent of the electricity consumed at GM’s California distribution comes from solar power through the first U.S. public solar project over 1 MW, operating since 2006.
Among its other renewable energy efforts, GM owns and operates 46 MW of solar capacity at 18 global facilities.
Besides, the Zaragoza facility in Spain owned by GM was the world’s largest commercial rooftop solar installation until 2012.
The company reduced energy use at global facilities by 28 percent on a per-vehicle-produced basis from 2005 to 2010 and by 10 percent from 2010 to 2013.
Enel Green Power North America has projects operating and under development in 21 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces.
In addition, the company has more than doubled its total North American installed capacity since 2010, with plans to double it again within the next 5 years.
Sabeena Wahid
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