Aldi Australia says it will be 100 percent renewable by end of 2021
The Australian side of German discount supermarket chain Aldi has pledged to source 100 per cent of its electricity from renewable resources by the end of 2021. The decision was made when stores and distribution centres installed rooftop solar panels.
The benefits gained from solar was astonishing. Aldi revealed that they'd slashed their operational emissions by 40% from a 2012 baseline.
Aldi plan on installing more energy efficient measures, and is now on track to reach the 100% renewable target for 2021 by implementing more solar and out-sourced wind power.
The Australian commitment is part of a company wide traget for climate protection endorsed by the science-based target initiative which is supported by the Univted National Global Compact World Resource Insititute and WWF.
Aldi's CEO said " We cannot ignore that we are a large user of energy and subsequently we will continue to take steps to reduce our impact". The results suggest that Aldi is the 64th biggest user of electricity in Austrialia, with more than 555 stores and eight distribution centres. The pledge to be 100% renewable is an impressive move. Initially, the rooftop solar roll-out happened in 2015. Since then, the retailer is on course to have 250 stores and six distribution centres fitted out with a total of 31.6MW of solar PV by the end of 2020, generating more than 50,000MWh of electricity.
According to Epho, each ALDI store is generally fitted with a 100kW rooftop solar system, which “coincidently is also what is needed to off-set the day-time energy consumption of the store.”
An official deal between Aldi and Ratch Austrialia was recently announced. The deal involved Aldi purchasing just under 20% of the power generated by its 227MW collector wind farm in New South Wales. The second agreement was made with Tilt Renewables to buy around 6% of their 336MW wind farm in Victoria. On top of this, the supermarket chain has invested in more efficient systems to reduce energy usage and carbon emissions, including LED lighting, energy-efficient chillers, and upgrading to natural refrigerants.
Aldi clamined that despite the short term costs, the investment in renewable energy will pay off tremendously in years to come. Corporate deals are, indeed, becoming increasingly important to the continued growth of Australia’s large-scale renewables industry, particularly with the Large-scale Renewable Energy Target bringing to a close any form of federal government policy support for the industry.
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