Solar Energy

Electricity is still mainly produced from fossil fuels. Electricity from Solar PV panels accounts for only 3.7% worldwide. We believe this share should be higher despite obvious limitations such as weather conditions and limited daily availability. Solar PV panels are now an affordable and efficient way to act pragmatically on climate change. We considered them to provide a way for us to signifcantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our processing plants.

Our Solar PV system in Malaysia

Since 2018, our main industrial and logistics buildings in Taiping, Malaysia, have been equipped with rooftop Solar panels. These generated around 1,700,000 kWh of electricity in 2022, saving the emission of 1,000 tons of CO2e every year. This is equivalent to the carbon emissions captured by a forest of 45,000 trees. This project benefts from a PPA (Power Purchase Agreement), signed with our Solar partner. This type of contract was a great opportunity for us to access cheaper energy costs from the start without up-front investment. 20 forthcoming years of fxed prices will allow us to improve our production cost control. At the end of the 20-year lease, we will own the system and enjoy “free” electricity for the Taiping site.

New Solar project in Vietnam

Given the excellent outcomes of our frst solar project and the expertise gathered by our team, we aim to continue increasing our share of renewable energy, taking further advantage of the improved technology.

With the ramp-up of production in our Vietnamese facility, a solar system became appropriate. After conducting the necessary studies, at the end of 2022 we signed a new Solar Investment deal to install 700 solar panels on the rooftop of our factory. This new solar system has a capacity of 381.5 kWp and should generate 500,000 kWh of electricity per year, approximately half of our electricity consumption in Vietnam. This should save around 400 tons of CO2e annually, equivalent to the carbon emissions captured by a forest of 19,000 trees.

For this project, we decided to invest directly using CAPEX. This represents a signifcant investment for our Vietnamese factory but is in line with our vision of the future and our carbon neutral strategy.