Honda has entered into long-term virtual power purchase agreements (VPPAs) for renewable wind and solar power that will cover more than 60 percent of the electricity it uses in North America, officials said in a statement Monday.
The goal is to slash CO2 emissions from its North American manufacturing operations. These VPPAs will enable Honda to fully offset the remaining carbon intensive grid-supplied electricity being used in its Alabama, Ohio and Indiana automobile manufacturing operations, and will help the company meet its voluntary carbon reduction goal.
Honda is one of the top automakers globally in the adoption of renewable energy to power its operations. Starting in fall of 2020, Honda will purchase 530,000 MWh/year from 120 MW of wind power generated by the Boiling Springs Wind Farm in Oklahoma, a 150 MW development of the energy company E.ON. A megawatt hour (Mwh) is equal to 1,000 Kilowatt hours (Kwh).
A year after that, in fall of 2021, Honda will buy an additional 482,000 MWh/year from 200 MW of solar power generated from a Texas solar facility. Details on that transaction will be disclosed in 2020 when it is nearer to completion.
Honda’s combined agreements for the output of 320 MW of renewable generation capacity will result in the purchase of 1.012 million MWh of electricity per year, making it the largest renewable energy procurement commitment for an automaker.
Once fully operational, these VPPAs will offset more than 800,000 metric tons of CO2e emissions annually, the equivalent of 100,000 U.S. households worth of CO2e emissions from household energy usage.3
Honda will continue to purchase electricity from the local utility for each manufacturing facility, but will receive and retire renewable energy certificates (RECs) equal to the power produced through the VPPAs, resulting in net zero CO2e emissions from electricity use within Honda’s Alabama, Ohio and Indiana manufacturing operations. Currently, 21 percent of the electricity that Honda uses in North America is supplied from extremely low and zero CO2 sources.
