Tetra Pak plans to boost green power

Tetra Pak, the Swedish food processing and packaging giant, recently committed itself to increase its use of renewable electricity from 20 percent to 100 percent across all of its global operations by 2030. One of Tetra Pak’s packaging plants in China has been playing a leading role in reaching this ambitious goal for seven years — thanks to the rapid development of two dairy companies, Yili and Mengniu, in InnerMongolia autonomous region.

Tetra Pak launched its fourth Chinese factory in Hohhot, the capital city of the region. The plant is the most productive in the company, expecting to manufacture 40 percent of Tetra Pak’s total output in the country this year.

The facility relied entirely on renewable energy by 2009, the first in China to achieve this. The estimated 20 million kWh of green power consumed on the site annually is supplied primarily from wind turbines.

Tetra Pak’s Hohhot factory’s use of green electricity saves approximately 16,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, amounting to a cumulative reduction of 135,000 tons in total by the end of 2015.

According to Liu Yun, factory director of Tetra Pak in Hohhot, the price of electricity in Inner Mongolia is lower than in other regions of China. So, the adoption of green electricity means a 50 percent increase in its operating cost.

“The price for green electricity is 0.2 yuan ($0.03) per kWh higher than the price of traditional electricity. Based on the agreements with the local government, the extra payment for the green power will be invested into the development of renewable power in the region,” she said.

China had 137 gigawatts of installed wind power capacity as of the end of June, a 30 percent increase year-onyear. Wind-power use fell about 9 percent from last year, due to wastage, according to the National Energy Administration.

Tetra Pak’s Liu said the development of green electricity requires cooperation between enterprises and a better mechanism could be set up for encouraging more transnational corporations to adopt renewable power.

the amount of carbon dioxide Tetra Pak’s Hohhot factory’s use of green electricity save per year