7 minute read
RENEWABLE ENERGY
Written by STUART HODGE
Advertisement
General Motors’ Global Manager of Renewables Rob Threlkeld says right now is the most exciting time to work in sustainability – Business Chief finds out why
General Motors World Headquarters
For a company like GeneralMotors (GM), sustainabilityis now a vital cog inits global operations.With businesses nowworking towards objectives set outin the Paris Agreement on Climate Action, there is now not just an incentive, but an imperative to work towards the goals delineated in the strategy, which aims for a global low-carbon economy by 2050.
Companies have been aware of the need to take a more ecological outlook for a number of years now, well before the agreement was submitted to the UN. A byproduct of this has been an exponential increase in the pace of innovation we’ve seen in the renewables space across all industries. It’s particularly true for GM, which has signed up to the RE100 agreement, outlining how the world’s most influential companies are committed to 100% renewable power.
That pace of innovation is something that is only set to continue, says Rob Threlkeld, Global Manager of Renewables at GM. He believes it will only get quicker as time goes on. “You’ve definitely seen it rapidly increase in the last five years,” he says, “especially with smart meters and other applications that allow you to choose when you use certain types of electricity – whether it’s green or not – and what the costs actually are.
“It’s also in the transportation sector. Five years ago, there was not a lot of talk around autonomous vehicles. Electrification was starting to just start to come around. We only had the (Chevrolet) Volt at that time. We’ve now got the Volt and the (Chevrolet) Bolt. But you can see this massive switch to where autonomous vehicles are definitely part of a future with zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion components. You’ve seen this technology revolution in both the utility and transportation sectors. You’re going to see more change in those sectors in the next five years than we’ve seen in the last 50-100 years.”
BREAKING DOWN GM’S FOUR-PILLAR RENEWABLES STRATEGY…
ENERGY EFFICIENCY
GM knows that reducing its overall energy consumption, as a company,has a direct correlation to its renewable energy percentages. Whether it’ssomething as routine as switching out lights to LEDs, GM looks at howit can optimise its energy management systems around its productionand manufacturing sites, in particular, to become energy efficient.
SOURCING RENEWABLES
Finding out the cheapest and most efficient means by which renewableenergy sources can be secured is vital to any company, particularly aglobal enterprise like GM. The main two methods GM uses to do thisis through power purchase agreements or onsite generation.
ADDRESSING VARIANCE AND INTERMITTENCY
On the automotive side, this can mean looking at what the company is doing interms of its advanced transport operations, whether it's battery storage, electricvehicles, fuel cells, etc. On a more general basis it refers to what the company isdoing to address the intermittency of renewables on the grid by innovating when itcomes to, for example, using new storage technologies or electrification efforts.
IDENTIFYING OPPORTUNITIES
The final pillar is essentially how GM really leverages policy and scale tolook at green tariffs, opportunities with utilities, and working with regionaltransmission operators. The company always looks to address the technologytransformation that's going on in a way that has a “broader value” to thecommunities it builds manufacturing facilities on, as well as consumers.
ENERGY DEMAND
Despite these disruptive changes inmentality and attitude, there are stillplenty of concerns around wherethese efforts are ultimately headed. Inthe US, which remains GM’s primarybase of operations, a recent reportfrom the Wind Energy Foundationidentified a serious gap betweencorporate America’s near-termdemand for renewable energy and theelectricity grid’s ability to meet thatdemand. Threlkeld says the issuescited in the report are simply part ofthe natural progression of change.
“I think it’s just part of the evolutionof the process,” he says. “Goingback five years, as we looked at howcorporations such as GM could scaleup the use of renewables, it wasmore around what the companiesreally need to do in this space toengage with each other. The nextlogical step was: how do we gaugethe utilities, which are really thenatural potential owners of therenewable energy assets? That’swhere we started to take off as welooked at green tariffs in the US andwhat utilities were starting to offer.
“The last component in this naturalprogression is the issue of moving this low-cost electricity. From a companystandpoint, we’re always lookingfor the most economic source ofgeneration that we can procure andsometimes getting it to our facilitiescan be a challenge. How do we nowengage relevant stakeholders – theregional transmission operators orthe independent system operatorsin this process – as technologydrives the future both in utilitiesand transport? It has to be in away that ultimately benefits all thecustomers. We don’t want to dounnecessary upgrades shouldtechnology supersede our work.”
ELECTRIC CARS AND THE FUTURE OF TRANSPORTATION
While GM has grown to muchmore than just an automotiveenterprise, it makes sense toscrutinise the sustainability of thecompany’s vehicular operations. Thetechnological transformation of carsinto electric vehicles, autonomousvehicles and fuel cells has completelychanged the way the organisationnow looks at its automotive strategy.
“Where we used to be more worriedabout the price of a litre of gasoline, it’snow focused on the cost of electricity, and when the consumer actuallyutilises that electricity,” says Threlkeld.
“You can see transformation with alot of our efforts in energy efficiencyand renewables in support of ourmanufacturing side of the operationthat now impacts the product side.From a competitive standpoint, they’rereally linked together in a way theyweren’t before, even a few years ago.
“Last October, we announced 20new electric vehicles between nowand 2023 as we march towards thatall-electric future. The ‘zero emissions’component is an important part ofour product messaging and sets acompetitive opportunity for us to lookat how we viewed manufacturing in thepast during our previous sustainabilityefforts. We’ve always focused thecompany in that direction. We’ve nowgot it both on the manufacturing andthe product side when you look atthe mobility component associatedwith the future of transportation.”
EFFECTIVE STRATEGISATION AND A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE
GM’s four pillar sustainabilitystrategy is fairly straightforwardin terms of the goals it sets outand its implementation, but every decision the company makes is thoroughly considered and well thought out. Threlkeld says it is therefore important to stay on top of what’s happening with regards sustainability and renewables more widely. “I think it’s very important to strategise,” he affirms. “As a person who has always been educated by what’s going on in the industry, I like to read a lot of different articles on what the industry is doing. I need to feel the pulse of some of these technological changes and how they have an impact on the broader efforts in electrification, whether it’s transportation or renewables. It’s really about gaining that knowledge and then being able to strategise around all the changes taking place.
GM’S RENEWABLE GOALS…
• ALL FACILITIES TO BE POWERED BY 100%RENEWABLE ENERGY
• ALL FACILITIES TO BE 100% LANDFILL FREE
• ACHIEVE 20% REDUCTION IN ENERGY INTENSITY BY 2020
• ACHIEVE 20% REDUCTION IN CARBON INTENSITY BY 2020
• ACHIEVE 15% REDUCTION IN WATER INTENSITY BY 2020
HOW ARE THE EFFORTS GOING?
“I think it's progressing well,” answers Threlkeld. “I just recently signed two100-megawatt wind power purchase agreements to supply 100% of ourload for seven of our manufacturing facilities in Ohio and Indiana. Those twowere some of our largest deals to date and will actually get us to 20% of ourelectricity being matched with renewable energy by the end of 2018.”
Another change that Threlkeld has seen is a move away from simply considering the environmental, operational and potential PR consequences of any decisions regarding renewables, to a situation now where sustainability efforts are as much motivated by financial considerations as the other factors. “In every project we do, we look at it from the financial perspective and obviously pull all the additional intangible benefits, environmental attributes, the right things for the company to do in our efforts towards sustainability. Everything we’re looking at is purely driven by the financials now.”
The renewables space, like any other, has its daily ups and downs as demand increases and decreases, despite the generally increasing need for it, and it works similarly on a month-to-month or year-toyear trend. Threlkeld feels that the process of learning when the peaks and troughs happen is an important
component of integrating the proper generation sources at the lowest cost possible. He is also aware that, when it comes to technology, it’s an ever-changing landscape, and is in no doubt as to where the next disruption may be coming from.
“I think battery storage is definitely going to be a disruptor in this space, as well as blockchain and artificial intelligence,” asserts Threlkeld. “How do you leverage all the technology and what is going on in the systems, whether it’s the grid or an individual
solar array or your home? How do those all integrate together to move the system in a much smarter way so it could deploy generation assets when needed as well as reducing generation assets when not needed, such as charging electric vehicles when the grid is actually requesting you to do so. With those questions in mind, I think artificial intelligence, blockchain, and those efforts are going to be key for us going forward to really leverage this technological transformation.”
