Trinseo to install solar panels at Finland facility
To offset its energy consumption, materials firm Trinseo has announced a partnership with Finnish electricity supplier Helen Oy for a ten-year energy consumption commitment from the installation of 1,800 solar panel modules at its Hamina, Finland manufacturing facility. The new solar panels are expected to offset the site’s power consumption by approximately 20% annually, which aligns with its climate change goal to increase the share of electricity from non-fossil sources from 5% to 30%.
As a first step at site-level decarbonisation initiatives, the company is conducting ongoing energy assessments of Trinseo’s global facilities, and this solar installation is a result of this work. It has previously installed solar panels at its Terneuzen, Netherlands, site and a windmill at its Tessenderlo, Belgium, facility. It anticipates more solar installation projects to follow later this year at other European facilities.
“This is a significant step in our efforts to decarbonize our operations,” said Francesca Reverberi, Senior Vice President, Engineered Materials/Chief Sustainability Officer. “Climate change is a material topic to our company and our stakeholders, and we are making significant advancements with our partners and the value chain to reduce our environmental impact.”
The panels, which will be housed onsite at the facility, are just the first step in Trinseo’s decarbonization strategy for managing Scope 2 emissions, which helps the company reduce its use of renewable energy certificates. So far, the company has undergone 32 carbon excellence projects. In addition to offsetting power consumption, the solar panels will also help the facility reduce its CO2 emissions by approximately 122,878 kg/year.
“The Hamina facility will now have access to physical renewable power, which enables the site to switch from compensating for emissions to eliminating them,” said Ake Zondervan, Global Energy Procurement Manager. “By exploring additional physical and virtual power purchase agreement opportunities, we expect to reduce the facility’s need for renewable energy certificates further in the future as we continue to seek opportunities to eliminate emissions.”
The solar panels will be installed at the Hamina facility over the coming months, and Trinseo anticipates they will be operational by June 2024.
